Calvin Wilson Mateer 

q\ Biography 
DANIEL W.FISHER 





Class J^VM^ 
Book .^ ^fS' 



GoipghtU^" 



COPYRIGHT DEPOStr. 



CALVIN WILSON MATEER 




C. W. MATEER 



Calvin Wilson Mateer 



FORTY-FIVE YEARS A MISSIONARY 
IN SHANTUNG, CHINA 



A BIOGRAPHY 



BY DANIEL W. FISHER 



PHILADELPHIA 

THE WESTMINSTER PRESS 

1911 






Copyright, 191 i, by 

The Trustees of the Presbyterian Board of 
Publication and Sabbath School Work 



Published September, 1911 



.^ 



CI.A205822 



CONTENTS 

Introduction 



CHAPTER I 

The Old Home 15 

Birth — The Cumberland Valley — Parentage — Broth- 
ers and Sisters, Father, Mother, Grandfather — Re- 
moval to the "Hermitage" — Life on the Farm — In the 
Home — Stories of Childhood and Youth. 

CHAPTER II 

The Making of the Man 27 

Native Endowments — Influence of the Old Home — A 
Country Schoolmaster — Hunterstown Academy — 
Teaching School — Dunlap's Creek Academy — Pro- 
fession of ReHgion — Jefferson College — Recollections 
of a Classmate — The Faculty — The Class of 1857 — ^A 
Semi-Centennial Letter. 

CHAPTER III 

Finding His Life Work 40 

Mother and Foreign Missions — Beaver Academy — 
Decision to be a Minister — Western Theological 
Seminary — The Faculty — Revival — Interest in Mis- 
sions — ^Licentiate — Considering Duty as to Missions — 
Decision — Delaware, Ohio — Delay in Going — Ordi- 
nation — Marriage — Going at Last. 

CHAPTER IV 

Gone to the Front 57 

Bound to Shantung, China — The Voyage — ^Hardships 
and Trials on the Way — At Shanghai — Bound for Che- 
foo— Vessel on the Rocks — Wanderings on Shore — 
- DeHverance and Arrival at Chef 00 — By Shentza to 
Tengchow. 

V 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER V PAGE 

The New Home 70 

The Mateer Dwelling — Tengchow as It Was — The 
Beginning of Missions There — The Kwan Yin Temple 
— Making a Stove and Coal-press — Left Alone in the 
Temple — Its Defects — ^Building a New House — 
Home Life. 

CHAPTER VI 

His Inner Life 88 

Not a Dreamer — Tenderness of Heart — Regeneration 
— Religious Reserve — Record of ReHgious Experiences 
— Depression and Rehef — Unreserved Consecration — 
Maturity of Religious Life — Loyalty to Convictions. 



CHAPTER VII 
Doing the Work of an Evangelist . . . 105 
Acquiring the Language — Hindrances — Beginning to 
Speak Chinese — Chapel at Tengchow — Province of 
Shantung — Modes of Travel — Some Experiences in 
Travel — First Country Trip — Chinese Inns — A Four 
Weeks' Itineration — To Wei Hsien — Hatred of For- 
eigners — Disturbance — Itinerating with Julia — Chi- 
nese Converts — To the Provincial Capital and Tsai An 
— Curtailing His Itinerations — Later Trips. 

CHAPTER VIII 

The Tengchow School 128 

The School Begun — Education and Missions — First 
Pupils — Means of Support — English Excluded — 
Growth of School — A Day's Programme — Care of 
Pupils — Discipline — An Attempted Suicide — Conver- 
sion of a Pupil — First Graduates — Reception After 
Furlough — An Advance — Two Decades of the School. 
vi 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER IX I'AGE 

The Press and Literary Labors . . . .150 
Contributions to the Periodicals — English Books — 
The Shanghai Mission Press — Temporary Superin- 
tendency — John Mateer — Committee on School 
Books — Earlier Chinese Books — School Books — 
Mandarin Dictionary — Mandarin Lessons — Care as 
to PubHcations — Pecuniary Returns. 

CHAPTER X 

The Care oe the Native Christians . . .173 
Reasons for Such Work — The Church at Tengchow — 
DiscipKne — Conversion of School Boys — Stated Sup- 
ply at Tengchow — Pastor — As a Preacher — The Scat- 
tered Sheep — Miao of Chow Yuen — Ingatherings — 
Latest Country Visitations — "Methods of Missions" 
— Presbytery of Shantung — Presbytery in the Coun- 
try — Synod of China — Moderator of Synod — In the 
General Assembly. 

CHAPTER XI 

The Shantung College 207 

"The College of Shantung" — The Equipment — Physi- 
cal and Chemical Apparatus — Gathering the Appar- 
atus — The Headship Laid Down — The Anglo-Chinese 
College — Problem of Location and Endowment — 
Transfer of College to Wei Hsien — ^A New President — 
"The Shantung Christian University" — Personal Re- 
moval to Wei Hsien — Temporary President — Official 
Separation — The College of To-day. 

CHAPTER XII 
With Apparatus and Machinery .... 236 
Achievements — Early Indications — Self -Development 
— Shop — Early Necessities — ^As a Help in Mission 
vii 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Work — \'isitors — Help to Emplo}TQent for Natives — 
Filling Orders — A !Mathematical Problem — Exhibi- 
tions. 

CHAPTER XHI 

The !^LA:^T) ARTS' Version . . . , . .252 
First IMissionar}' Conference — The Chinese Language 
— Second JMissionar}^ Conference — Consultation as to 
New Version of Scriptures — The Plan — Selection of 
Translators — Translators at Work — Difficulties — 
Style — Sessions — Final ^Meeting — Xew Testament 
Finished — Lessons Learned — Conference of 1907 — 
Translators of the Old Testament. 

CHAPTER XIV 

Inctdexts by the Way . . . . . .275 

Trials — Deaths — The "Rebels" — Tientsin Massacre 
— ^Japanese War with China — Boxer Uprising — Fam- 
ine — Controversies — EngKsh in the College — Pleas- 
ures — ^Distinctions and Honors — Journeys — Furloughs 
— Marriage — The Siberian Trip — Scenes of Early Life. 

CHAPTER XV 

Factng the X^ew China . . . . . -305 
The Great Break-Up — Past Anticipations — A ]Maker 
of the Xew China — Influence of Missionaries — Present 
Indications — Dangers — Duties — Future of Chris- 
tianitv. 

CIL\PTER XVL 

Called Up Higher 319 

The Last Simimer — Increasing lUness — Taken to 
Tsingtao — The End — A Prayer — Ser\-ice at Tsingtao 
— Funeral at Chefoo — Tributes of Dr. Corbett, Dr. 
Hayes, Dr. Goodrich, Mr. Bailer, Mrs. A. H. 
!Mateer — West Shantung ^Mission — EngKsh Baptist 
Mission — Presbyterian Board — Secretary Brown — 
Biographer — "Valiant for the Truth." 
viii 



INTRODUCTION 

IT is a pmilege to comply ^ith the request of 
Dr. Fisher to vrrite a brief introduction to his 
biography of the late Cahdn W. Mateer, D.D., 
LL.D. I knew Dr. Mateer intimately, corresponded 
with him for thirteen years and visited him in China. 
He was one of the makers of the new China, and his 
hfe form.s a part of the histor)^ of Christian missions 
which no student of that subject can afford to over- 
look. He sailed from New York in 1863, at the age 
of twenty-eight, -^i^dth his yoimg wife and Rev. 
and Mrs. Hunter Corbett, the journey to China 
occup>TQg six months in a slow and v^Tetchedly un- 
comfortable sailmg vessel. It is difficult now to 
realize that so recently as 1863 a voyage to the far 
East was so formidable an imdertaking. Indeed, the 
hardships of that voyage were so great that the health 
of some members of the party was seriously impaired. 
Difficulties did not end when the yoimg mission- 
aries arrived at their destination. The people 
were not friendly; the conveniences of Hfe were few; 
the loneliness and isolation were exceedingly trying; 
but the young missionaries were undaunted and 
pushed their work vdth splendid courage and faith. 
Mr. Corbett soon became a leader in evangelistic 

9 



10 INTRODUCTION 

work, but Dr. Mateer, while deeply interested in 
evangeKstic work and helping greatly in it, felt 
chiefly drawn toward educational work. In 1864, 
one year after his arrival, he and his equally gifted 
and devoted wife managed to gather six students. 
There were neither text-books, buildings, nor assist- 
ants; but with a faith as strong as it was sagacious 
Dr. and Mrs. Mateer set themselves to the task of 
building up a college. One by one buildings were 
secured, poor and humble indeed, but sufhcing for 
a start. The missionary made his own text-books 
and manufactured much of the apparatus with his 
own hands. He speedily proved himself an educator 
and administrator of exceptional ability. Increasing 
numbers of young Chinese gathered about him. 
The college grew. From the beginning, Mr. Mateer 
insisted that it should give its training in the Chinese 
language, that the instruction should be of the most 
thorough kind, and that it should be pervaded through- 
out by the Christian spirit. When, after thirty- 
five years of unremitting toil, advancing years com- 
pelled him to lay down the burden of the presidency, 
he had the satisfaction of seeing the college recognized 
as one of the very best colleges in all Asia. It con- 
tinues under his successors in larger form at Wei 
Hsien, where it now forms the Arts College of the 
Shantung Christian University. 

Dr. Mateer was famous not only as an educator, 
but as an author and translator. After his retire- 
ment from the college he devoted himself almost 



INTRODUCTION 11 

wholly to literary work, save for one year, when a 
vacancy in the presidency of the college again devolved 
its cares temporarily upon him. His knowledge of 
the Chinese language was extraordinary. He prepared 
many text-books and other volumes in Chinese, 
writing some himself and translating others. The 
last years of his hfe were spent as chairman of a 
committee for the revision of the translation of the 
Bible into Chinese, a labor to which he gave himself 
with loving zeal. 

Dr. Mateer was a man of unusual force of char- 
acter; an educator, a scholar and an executive of 
high capacity. Hanover College, of which Dr. D. 
W. Fisher was then president, early recognized his 
ability and success by bestowing upon him the honor- 
ary degree of Doctor of Divinity, and in 1903 his 
alma mater added the degree of Doctor of Laws. 
We mourn that the work no longer has the benefit of 
his counsel; but he builded so well that the results 
of his labors will long endure, and his name will 
always have a prominent place in the history of 
missionary work in the Chinese empire. 

Dr. Fisher has done a great service to the cause 
of missions and to the whole church in writing the 
biography of such a man. A college classmate 
and lifelong friend of Dr. Mateer, and himself a 
scholar and educator of high rank, he has written 
with keen insight, with full comprehension of his 
subject, and with admirable clearness and power. 
I bespeak for this volume and for the great work in 



12 INTRODUCTION 

China to which Dr. Mateer consecrated his Hfe the 
deep and sympathetic interest of all who may read 
this book. 

Arthur Judson Brown 

156 Fifth Avenue, New York City, 
April 13th, igii 



PREFACE 

WHEN I was asked to become the biographer 
of Dr. Mateer, I had planned to do other 
Kterary work, and had made some prepara- 
tion for it; but I at once put that aside and entered 
on the writing of this book. I did this for several rea- 
sons. Though Dr. Mateer and I had never been 
ver>^ intimate friends, yet, beginning vdih our college 
and seminary days, and on to the close of his life, we 
had always been very good friends. I had occasion- 
ally corresponded with him, and, being in hearty 
sympathy ^ith the cause of foreign missions, I had 
kept myself so well informed as to his achievements 
that I had unusual pleasure in officially conferring 
on him the first of the distinctions by which his name 
came to be so well adorned. As his college classmate, 
I had joined with the other sur^'ivors in recogniz- 
ing him as the one of our number whom we most 
delighted to honor. WTien I laid down my office 
of college president, he promptly wTote me, and 
suggested that I occupy my leisure by a \asit to China, 
and that I use my tongue and pen to aid the cause 
of the evangelization of that great people. Only 
a few months before his death he sent me extended 
directions for such a A-isit. ^\^len — wholly unex- 
pectedly — the in\'itation came to me to prepare his 
biography, what could I do but respond favorably? 
It has been my sole object in this book to reveal 

13 



14 PREFACE 

to the reader Dr. Mateer, the man, the Christian, 
the missionary, both his inner and his outer Hfe, 
just as it was. In doing this I have very often availed 
myself of his own words. Going beyond these, I have 
striven neither to keep back nor to exaggerate any- 
thing that deserves a place in this record. All the 
while the preparation of this book has been going 
forward in my hands my appreciation of the magni- 
tude of the man and of his work has been increasing. 
Great is the story of his career. If this does not 
appear so to any reader who has the mind and the 
heart to appreciate it, then the fault is mine. It, 
in that case, is in the telHng, and not in the matter 
of the book, that the defect Hes. 

So many relatives and acquaintances of Dr. Mateer 
have contributed valuable material, on which I 
have drawn freely, that I dare not try to mention 
them here by name. It is due, however, to Mrs. 
J. M. Kirk wood to acknowledge that much of the 
chapter on ''The Old Home" is based on a mono- 
graph she prepared in advance of the writing of this 
biography. It is due also to Mrs. Ada H. Mateer 
to acknowledge the very extensive and varied assist- 
ance which she has rendered in the writing of this 
book: first, by putting the material already on hand 
into such shape that the biographer's labors have 
been immensely lightened, and later, by furnishing 
with her own pen much additional information, and 
by her wise, practical suggestions. 

D. W. F. 
Washington, 191 i 



CALVIN WILSON MATEER 



THE OLD HOME 

" There are all the fond recollections and associations of my 
youth." — ^JOURNAL, March 4, 1857. 

CALVIN WILSON MATEER, of whose life 
and work this book is to tell, was born in 
Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, near 
Shiremanstown, a few miles west of Harrisburg, on 
January 9, 1836. »- 

This Cumberland valley, in which he first saw the 
light, is one of the fairest regions in all our country. 
Beginning at the great, broad Susquehanna, almost 
in sight of his birthplace, it stretches far away, a 
Httle to the southwest, on past Chambersburg, and 
across the state line, and by way of Hagerstown, to 
its other boundary, drawn by a second and equally 
majestic stream, the historic Potomac. Physically 
considered, the splendid Shenandoah valley, still 
beyond in Virginia, is a further extension of the same 
depression. It is throughout a most attractive 
panorama of gently rolhng slopes and vales, of fertile 
and highly cultivated farms, of great springs of purest 
water and of purling brooks, of little parks of trees 

15 



16 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

spared by the woodman's ax, of comfortable and 
tasteful rural homes, of prosperous towns and villages 
where church spires and school buildings and the con- 
veniences of modern civilization bear witness to the 
high character of the people, — all of this usually set 
like a picture in a framework of the blue and not very 
rugged, or very high, wooded mountains between 
which, in their more or less broken ranges, the entire 
valley Hes. 

True, it was winter when this infant first looked 
out on that world about him, but it was only waiting 
for spring to take off its swaddling of white, and to 
clothe it with many-hued garments. Twenty-eight 
years afterward, almost to the very day, he, cast 
ashore on the coast of China, was strugghng over 
the roadless and snow covered and, to him, wholly 
unlcnown ground toward the place near which he 
was to do the work of his Hfe, and where his body 
rests in the grave. When he died, in his seventy- 
third year, the spiritual spring for which he had 
prayed and longed and labored had not yet fully 
come, but there were many indications of its not 
distant approach. 

John Mateer, the father of Calvin, was born in this 
beautiful Cumberland valley, on a farm which was a 
part of a large tract of land entered by the Mateers 
as first settlers, out of whose hands, however, it had 
almost entirely passed at the date when this biog- 
raphy begins. The mother of Calvin was born in the 
neighboring county of York. Her maiden name was 



THE OLD HOME 17 

Mary Nelson Diven. Both father and mother were 
of that Scotch-Irish descent to which especially 
Pennsylvania and Virginia are indebted for so many 
of their best people; and they both had behind them 
a long line of sturdy, honorable and God-fearing 
ancestors. 

At the time of Calvin's birth his parents were living 
in a frame house which is still standing; and though, 
with the passing of years, it has much deteriorated, 
it gives evidence that it was a comfortable though 
modest home for the little family. 

One of the employments of his father while resident 
there was the running of a water mill for hulling clover 
seed; and Calvin tells somewhere of a recollection 
that he used to wish when a very little boy that he 
were tall enough to reach a lever by which he could 
turn on more water to make the mill go faster, — a 
childish anticipation of his remarkable mechanical 
ability and versatility in maturer years. 

Calvin was the oldest of seven children — five 
brothers and two sisters; in the order of age, Calvin 
Wilson, Jennie, William Diven, John Lowrie, Robert 
McCheyne, Horace Nelson and Lillian, of whom 
Jennie, William, Robert and Horace are still living. 
Of these seven children, Calvin and Robert became 
ministers of the gospel in the Presbyterian Church, 
and missionaries in Shantung, China; John for five 
years had charge of the Presbyterian Mission Press 
at Shanghai, and later of the Congregational Press at 
Peking, where he died; Lillian taught in the Girls' 



18 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

School at Tengchow, and, after her marriage to Rev. 
William S. Walker, of the Southern Baptist Mission, 
in the school at Shanghai, until the failing health of 
her husband compelled her to return to the United 
States; WiUiam for a good while was strongly dis- 
posed to offer himself for the foreign missionary ser- 
vice, and reluctantly acting on advice, turned from it 
to business. Jennie married an exceptionally prom- 
ising young Presbyterian minister, and both offered 
themselves to the foreign work and were under 
appointment to go to China when health considera- 
tions compelled them to remain in their homeland. 
Some years after his death she married a college pro- 
fessor of fine abiHty. Horace is a professor in the 
University of Wooster, and a practicing physician. 

In view of this very condensed account of the re- 
markable life and work of the children in this house- 
hold, one may well crave to know more about the 
parents, and about the home life in the atmosphere 
of which they were nurtured. Their father and 
mother both had the elementary education which 
could be furnished in their youth by the rural schools 
during the brief terms for which they were held each 
year. In addition, the mother attended a select 
school in Harrisburg for a time. Both father and 
mother built well on this early foundation, forming 
the habit of wise, careful reading. Both were pro- 
fessing Christians when they were married, and in 
infancy Calvin was baptized in the old Silver Spring 
Church, near which they resided. Later the father 



THE OLD HOME 19 

became a ruling elder in the Presbyterian church 
to which they had removed their membership. In 
this capacity he was highly esteemed, his pastor 
relying especially on his just, discerning judgment. 
He had a beautiful tenor voice and a fine musical 
sense, and he led the choir for a number of years. 
Few laymen in the church at large were better in- 
form^ed as to its doctrines and history, and few were 
more famiHar with the Bible. There was in the 
church a library from which books were regularly 
brought home; rehgious papers were taken and read 
by the whole family, and thus all were acquainted 
with the current news of the churches, and with the 
progress of the gospel in the world. 

In the conduct of his farm Mr. Mateer was thrifty, 
industrious and economical. His land did not yield 
very bountifully, but all of its products were so well 
husbanded that notwithstanding the size of his family 
he yet accumulated considerable property. Though 
somewhat reluctant at first to have his boys one after 
another leave him, thus depriving him of their help 
on the farm, he aided each to the extent of his ability, 
and as they successively fitted themselves for larger 
fives he rejoiced in their achievements. 

Mr. Mateer died at Monmouth, Ilfinois, in 1875. 
When the tidings reached Calvin out in China, he 
wrote home to his mother a beautiful letter, in which 
among other things he said: *' Father's death was 
eminently characteristic of his life — modest, quiet 
and self -suppressed. He died the death of the 



20 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

righteous and has gone to a righteous man's reward. 
The message he sent John and me was not necessary; 
that he should ' die trusting in Jesus' was not news to 
us, for we knew how he had Hved." 

By reading the records that have been at my com- 
mand I have gotten the conviction that the mother 
was the stronger character, or at least that she more 
deeply impressed herself on the children. When 
Calvin made his last visit to this country, he was asked 
whose influence had been most potent in his Hfe, and 
he at once replied, ^'Mother's." In his personal 
appearance he strongly resembled her. If one could 
have wished for any change in his character, it might 
have been that he should have had in it just a Kttle 
bit more of the ideality of his father, and just a little 
bit less of the intense realism of his mother. Some 
of his mother's most evident characteristics were in 
a measure traceable as an inheritance from her 
father, William Diven; for example, the place to 
which she assigned education among the values of 
Kfe. He was a man of considerable literary attain- 
ments, for his day, and for one residing out in the 
country; so that when in later years he came to make 
his home with the Mateers he brought with him a 
collection of standard books, thus furnishing addi- 
tional and substantial reading for the family. Even 
Shakspere and Burns were among the authors, though 
they were not placed v/here the children could have 
access to them, and were made familiar to them only 
by the grandfather's quotation of choice passages. 




DR. MATHERS MOTHER 



THE OLD HOME 21 

When his daughter was a little girl, so intense was his 
desire that she should have as good an education as 
practicable, that if the weather was too inclement for 
her to walk to the schoolhouse he used to carry her 
on his back. It was her lifelong regret that her educa- 
tion was so defective; and it is said that after she was 
seventy years of age, once she dreamed that she was 
sent to school at Mount Holyoke, and she awoke in 
tears to find that she was white-haired, and that it was 
only a dream. Although it involved the sacrifice of 
her own strength and ease, she never faltered in her 
determination that her children should have the 
educational advantages to which she had aspired, 
but never attained; and in what they reached in this 
direction she had a rich satisfaction. Toward every 
other object which she conceived to be good and true, 
and to be within the scope of her life, she set herself 
with like persistence, and strength, and willingness 
for self-sacrifice. Her piety was deep, thorough and 
all-controlling; but with her it was a principle rather 
than a sentiment. Its chief aim was the promotion 
of the glory of the infinitely holy God, though as she 
neared the visible presence of her Saviour, this 
softened somewhat into a conscious love and faith 
toward him. She survived her husband twenty-one 
years, and died at the advanced age of seventy-nine. 
When the tidings of this came to her children in China, 
their chief lament was, "How we shall miss her 
prayers!" 

When Calvin was about five years old, his parents 



22 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

bought a farm twelve miles north of Gettysburg, near 
what is now York Springs, in Adams County. It 
is some twenty miles from the place of his birth, and 
beyond the limits of the Cumberland valley. Even 
now it is a comparatively out-of-the-way spot, reached 
only by a long drive from the nearest railway station; 
then it was so secluded that the Mateers called the 
house into which they removed the "Hermitage." 
Here the family continued to reside untU. about the 
time of Calvin's graduation from college. Then a 
second and much longer move was made, to Mercer 
Coimty, in western Pennsylvania. Still later, a third 
migration brought them to Illinois. It is to the home 
in Adams County that Calvin refers in the line quoted 
at the head of this chapter, as the place where ''were 
all the fond recollections and associations" of his 
youth. 

The farm was not very large, and the soil was only 
moderately productive, notwithstanding the labor and 
skill that the Mateers put upon it. In picking off 
the broken slate stones which were turned up thick 
by the plow, the children by hard experience were 
trained in patient industry as to small details. At 
least the two elder frequently beguiled the tedium 
of this task "by reciting portions of the Westminster 
Catechism and long passages of Scripture." Another 
really tedious occupation, which, however, was con- 
verted into a sort of late autumn feast of ingathering, 
was shared by the whole family, but was especially 
appreciated by the children. This was the nut 



THE OLD HOME 23 

harvest of the "shellbark" hickory trees of the forest. 
As many as fifty or more bushels were gathered in a 
season; the sale of these afforded a handsome supple- 
ment to the income of the household. Along the side 
of the farm flows a beautiful stream, still bearing its 
Indian name of Bermudgeon, and in front of the house 
is a smaller creek; and in these Calvin fished and set 
traps for the muskrats, and experimented with little 
waterwheels, and learned to swim. Up on an eleva- 
tion still stand the old house and barn, both con- 
structed of the red brick once so largely used in the 
eastern section of Pennsylvania. Both of these are 
still in use. Though showing signs of age and lack 
of care, they are witnesses that for those days the 
Mateers were quite up to the better standard of Hving 
customary among their neighbors. ^'This growing 
family," says Mrs. Kirkwood (Jennie), ^'was a hive 
of industry, making most of the implements used both 
indoors and out, and accomplishing many tasks long 
since relegated to the factory and the shop. Necessity 
was with them the piother not only of invention, but 
of execution as well. All were up early in the morning 
eating breakfast by candlelight even in summer, 
and ready before the sun had risen for a day's work 
that continued long after twilight had fallen." In 
the barn they not only housed their horses and cattle 
and the field products, but also manufactured most 
of the implements for their agricultural work. Here 
Calvin first had his mechanical gifts called into 
exercise, sometimes on sleds and wagons and farm 



24 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

tools, and sometimes on traps and other articles of 
youthful sport. 

In this home family worship was held twice each 
day, — ^in the morning often before the day had fully 
dawned, and in the evening when the twiHght was 
vanishing into night. In this service usually there 
were not only the reading of Scripture and the offering 
of prayer, but also the singing of praise, the fine 
musical voice of the father and his abihty to lead in 
the tunes making this all the more effective. Of 
course, on the Sabbath the entire family, young and 
old, so far as practicable, attended services when held 
in the Presbyterian church not far away. But that 
was not all of the religious observances. The Sabbath 
was sacredly kept, after the old-fashioned manner 
of putting away the avoidable work of the week, and 
of giving exceptional attention to sacred things. Mrs. 
Kirkwood, who was near enough in age to be the 
"chum" of Calvin, writes: "Among the many living 
pictures which memory holds of those years, there is 
one of a large, airy, farmhouse kitchen, on a Sabbath 
afternoon. The table, with one leaf raised to afford 
space for 'Scott' and 'Henry,' stands between two 
doors that look out upon tree-shaded, flower-filled 
yards. There sits the mother, with open books spread 
all about her, studying the Bible lesson for herself and 
for her children. Both parents and children attended a 
pastor's class in which the old Sunday School Union 
Question Book was used. In this many references were 
given which the children were required to commit. 



THE OLD HOME 25 

Older people read them from their Bibles, but these 
children memorized them. Some of the longer ones 
could never be repeated in after times without 
awakening associations of the muscularizing mental 
tussles of those early days." It was a part of the 
rehgious training of each child in that household, 
just as soon as able to read, to commit to memory 
the Westminster Shorter Catechism, — not so as to 
blunder through the answers in some sort of fashion, 
but so as to recite them all, no matter how long or 
difficult, without mistaking so much as an article or a 
preposition. 

Stories are handed down concerning the boy Calvin 
at home, some of which foreshadow characteristics 
of his later years. One of these must suffice here. 
The *' Hermitage," when the Mateers came into it, 
was popularly beheved to be haunted by a former 
occupant whose grave was in an old deserted Epis- 
copal churchyard about a mile away. The grave was 
sunken, and it was asserted that it would not remain 
filled. It was also rumored that in the gloomy woods 
by which the place was surrounded a headless man 
had been seen wandering at night. Nevertheless 
the Mateer children often went up there on a Sabbath 
afternoon, and entered the never-closed door, to view 
the Bible and books and desk, which were left just 
as they had been when services long before had ceased 
to be held; or wandered about the graves, picking the 
moss from the inscriptions on the headstones, in 
order to see who could find the oldest. It was a 



26 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

place that, of course, was much avoided at night; 
for had not restless white forms been seen mo\'ing 
about among these burial places of the dead? The 
boy Cahdn had been in the habit of running by it 
in the late evening mth fast-beating heart. One 
dark night he went and climbed up on the graveyard 
fence, resolved to sit in that supremely desolate and 
imcanny spot till he had mastered the superstitious 
fear associated mth it. The owls hooted, and other 
night soimds were intensified by the loneliness, but 
he successfully passed his chosen ordeal, and won a 
victory worth the effort. In a youthful way he was 
disciplining himself for more difficult ordeals in China. 



II 

THE MAKING OF THE MAN 

"It has been said, and with truth, that when one has finished 
his course in an ordinary college, he knows just enough to be 
sensible of his own ignorance." — letter to ms mother, Janu- 
ary 15, 1857. 

THE letter from which the sentence at the head 
of this chapter is taken was written a week 
after Mateer had reached his twenty-first year 
and when he was almost half advanced in his senior 
year in college. Later in the letter he says: "Im- 
provement and advancement need not, and should 
not, stop with a college life. We should be advancing 
in knowledge so long as we live." With this under- 
standing we may somewhat arbitrarily set his gradua- 
tion from college as terminating the period of his life 
covered by what I have designated as *'the making 
of the man." 

Back of all else lay his native endowments of body 
and of mind. Physically he was exceptionally free 
from both inherited and acquired weaknesses. In a 
letter which he wrote to his near relatives in this 
country on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, 
he said, "I have not only lived, but I have enjoyed 
an exceptional measure of health." At no period was 
he laid aside by protracted sickness. At the same 

27 



28 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

time, this must not be imderstood to signify that he 
had one of those iron constitutions that seem to be 
capable of enduring without harm every sort of 
exposure except such as in its nature must be mortal. 
In that part of his Journal covering portions of his 
college and seminary work he often tells of a lassitude 
for which he blames himself as morally at fault, but 
in which a physician would have seen symptoms of a 
low bodily tone. Bad food, lack of exercise and ill 
treatment on the voyage which first brought him to 
China left him with a temporary attack of dyspepsia. 
Occasionally he had dysentery, and once he had 
erysipelas. At no time did he regard himself as so 
rugged in constitution that he did not need to pro- 
vide himseK with proper clothing and shelter, so far 
as practicable. Nevertheless it was because of the 
sound physique inherited from his parents, and fos- 
tered by his country Kfe during early youth, that 
without any serious breaking down of health or 
strength he was able to endure the privations and the 
toils and cares of his forty-five years in China. 

As to his native mental endowments, no one would 
have been more ready than he to deny that he was a 
'' genius," if by this is meant that he had an ability 
oft'hand to do important things for the accompKsh- 
ment of which others require study and effort. If, 
as to this, any exception ought to be made in his favor, 
it would be concerning some of the applied sciences and 
machinery, and possibly mathematics. He certainly 
had an extraordinary aptitude especially as to the 



THE MAKING OF THE MAN 29 

former of these. While he himself regarded his work 
in the Mandarin as perhaps the greatest of his achieve- 
ments, he had no such talent for the mastery of foreign 
languages that he did not need time and toil and 
patience to learn them. In college his best standing 
was not in Latin or Greek. In China other mis- 
sionaries have been able to preach in the native 
tongue after as short a period of preparation; and 
the perfect command of the language which he at- 
tained came only after years of ceaseless toil. 

Such were his native physical and m^ental endow- 
ments: a good, sound, though not unusually rugged, 
bodily constitution; and an intellect vigorous in all 
of its faculties, which was in degree not so superior 
as to set him on a pedestal by himself, yet was very 
considerably above the average even of college 
students. 

Concerning the qualities of his heart and of his will 
it is best to wait and speak later in this volume. 

In the making of a man native endowments are 
only the material out of which and on which to build. 
Beyond these, what we become depends on our 
opportunities and the use to which we put them. 
The atmosphere of the old home had much to do 
wath the unfolding of the subsequent Kfe and character 
of Mateer. Some of his leading quahties were there 
grown into his being. 

Other powerful influences also had a large share in 
his development. About three quarters of a mile 
from the ^'Hermitage" stood a township school- 



30 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

house, a small brick building, "guiltless alike of paint 
or comfort," most primitive in its furnishing, and 
open for instruction only five or six months each year, 
and this in the winter. The pressure of work in the 
house and on the farm never was allowed to interrupt 
the attendance of the Mateer children at this little 
center of learning for the neighborhood. Of course, 
the teachers usually were qualified only to conduct 
the pupils over the elementary branches, and no 
provision was made in the curriculum for anything 
beyond these. But it so happened that for two winters 
Calvin had as his schoolmaster there James Duffield, 
who is described by one of his pupils still Hving as 
"a genius in his profession, much in advance of his 
times, and quite superior to those who preceded and 
to those who came after him. In appearance Duffield 
was awkward and shy. His large hands and feet 
were ever in his way, except when before a class; 
then he was suddenly at ease, absorbed in the work 
of teaching, alert, full of vitality, with an enthusiasm 
for mastery, and an intellectual power that made 
every subject alive with interest, leaving his impress 
upon each one of his pupils." Algebra was not recog- 
nized as falling within the legitimate instruction, and 
no suspicion that any boy or girl was studying it 
entered the minds of the plain farmers who constituted 
the official visitors. One day a friend of the teacher, 
a scholarly man, came in at the time when the exam- 
inations were proceeding, and the teacher sprang a 
surprise by asking this friend whether he would like 



THE MAKING OF THE MAN 31 

to see one of his pupils solve a problem in algebra. 
He had discerned the mathematical bent of the lad, 
Calvin Mateer, and out of school hours and just for 
the satisfaction of it he had privately been giving 
the boy lessons in that study. When an affirmative 
response was made by the stranger, Calvin went to 
the blackboard and soon covered half of it with a 
solution of an algebraic problem. Surprised and 
deHghted, the stranger tested the lad with problem 
after problem, some of them the hardest in the text- 
book in use, only to find him able to solve them. It 
would have been difficult to discover which of the 
three principal parties to the examination, the visitor, 
the teacher, or the pupil, was most gratified by the 
outcome. There can be no question that this country 
school-teacher had much to do with awakening the 
mathematical capabilities and perhaps others of the 
intellectual gifts which characterized that lad in 
manhood and throughout life. 

When Calvin was in his seventeenth year, he started 
in his pursuit of higher education, entering a small 
academy at Hunterstown, eight miles from the 
"Hermitage." In this step he had the stimulating 
encouragement of his mother, whose quenchless 
passion for education has already been described. 
His father probably would at that time have preferred 
that he should remain at home and help on the farm; 
and occasionally, for some years, the question whether 
he ought not to have fallen in with the paternal wish 
caused him serious thought. As it was, he came home 



32 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

from the academy in the spring, and in the autumn 
and also at harvest, to assist in the work. 

The first term he began Latin, and the second term 
Greek, and he kept his mathematics well in hand, 
thus distinctly setting his face toward college. But 
his pecuniary means were narrow, and in the winter of 
1853-54 he had to turn aside to teach a country school 
some three miles from his home. In a brief bio- 
graphical sketch which, by request of his college 
classmates, he furnished for the fortieth anniversary 
of their graduation he says: '^This was a hard ex- 
perience. I was not yet eighteen and looked much 
younger. Many of the scholars were young men and 
women, older than I, and there was a deal of rowdyism 
in the district. I held my own, however, and finished 
with credit, and grew in experience more than in any 
other period of my life." 

When the school closed he returned to the academy, 
which by that time had passed into the hands of 
S. B. Mercer, in whom he found a teacher of excep- 
tional ability, both as to scholarship and as to the 
stimulation of his students to do and to be the best 
that was possible to them. In the spring of 1855 
Mr. Mercer left the Hunterstown Academy, and 
went to Merrittstown, Fayette County, Pennsylvania, 
where he took charge of the Dimlaps Creek Academy. 
Calvin, influenced by his attachment to his teacher, 
and also by his intention to enter Jefferson College, 
situated in a neighboring county, went with him. 
Here he made his home, with other students, in the 



THE MAKING OF THE MAN 33 

house occupied by the Mercers. For teaching two 
classes, one in geometry and one in Greek, he received 
his tuition. For the ostensible reason that he had 
come so far to enter the academy he was charged a 
reduced price for his board. All the way down to 
the completion of his course in the theological seminary 
he managed to live upon the means furnished in part 
from home, and substantially supplemented by his 
own labors; but he had to practice rigid economy. 
It was while at Merrittstown that he made a public 
profession of rehgion. This was only a few months 
before he entered college. He found in Dr. Samuel 
Wilson, the pastor of the Presbyterian church, a 
preacher and a man who won his admiration and 
esteem, and who so encouraged and directed him that 
he took this step. 

In the autumn of 1855 he entered the junior class of 
Jefferson College, at Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. In 
those days it was customary for students to be 
admitted further advanced as to enrollment than at 
present. I had myself preceded Mateer one year, 
entering as a sophomore in the same class into which 
he first came as a junior. One reason for this state 
of things was that the requirements were considerably 
lower than they now are; and they were often laxly 
enforced. Then, because the range of studies required 
was very limited in kind, consisting until the junior 
year almost exclusively of Latin, Greek and mathe- 
matics, it was possible for the preparatory schools to 
carry the work of their students well up into the 
3 



34 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

curriculum of the college. Mateer had the advantage, 
besides, of such an excellent instructor as Professor 
Mercer, and of experience in teaching. He says: "I 
was poorly prepared for this class, but managed to 
squeeze in. The professor of Latin wanted me to 
make up some work which I had not done; but I 
demurred, and I recollect saying to him, * If after a 
term you still think I ought to make it up, I will do 
it, or fall back to the sophomore class.' I never 
heard of it afterwards. I was very green and bashful 
when I went to coUege, an unsophisticated farmer's 
boy from a little coimtry academy. I knew little or 
nothing of the ways of the world." 

As his classmate in college, and otherwise closely 
associated with him as a fellow-student, I knew him 
well. I remember still with a good deal of distinctness 
his appearance; he was rather tall, light-haired, with 
a clear and intelligent countenance, and a general 
physique that indicated thorough soundness of body, 
though not excessively developed in any member. 
When I last saw him at Los Angeles a few years ago, I 
could perceive no great change in his looks, except 
such as is inevitable from the flight of years, and from 
his large and varied experience of Life. It seems to 
me that it ought to be easy for any of his acquain- 
tances of later years to form for themselves a picture 
of him in his young manhood at the college and at 
the theological seminary. So far as I can now recall, 
he came to college unheralded as to what might be 
expected of him there. He did not thrust himself 



THE MAKING OF THE MAN 35 

forward; but it was not long until by his work and 
his thorough manliness, it became evident that in him 
the class had received an addition that was sure to 
count heavily in all that was of importance to a stu- 
dent. I do not think that he joined any of the Greek 
letter secret societies, though these were at the height 
of their prosperity there at that time. In the Hterary 
societies he discharged well and faithfully his duties, 
but he did not stand out very conspicuously in the 
exercises required of the members. In those days 
there was plenty of "college politics," sometimes very 
petty, and sometimes not very creditable, though 
not wholly without profit as a preparation for the 
"rough-and-tumble" of life in after years, but in 
this Mateer did not take much part. Most of us 
were still immature enough to indulge in pranks that 
afforded us fun, but which were more an expression of 
our immaturity than we then imagined; and Mateer 
participated in one of these in connection with the 
Fremont-Buchanan campaign in 1856. A great Re- 
publican meeting was held at Canonsburg, and 
some of us students appeared in the procession as a 
burlesque company of Kansas "border ruffians." 
We were a sadly disgraceful-looking set. Of one thing 
I am sure, that while Mateer gave himself constantly 
to his duties and refrained from most of the silly 
things of college life, he was not by any of us looked 
upon as a "stick." He commanded our respect. 

The faculty was small and the equipment of the 
college meager. The attendance was nearly three 



36 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

hundred. As to attainments, we were a mixed multi- 
tude. To instruct all of these there were — for both 
regular and required work — only six men, including 
one for the preparatory department. What could 
these few do to meet the needs of this miscellaneous 
crowd? They did their best, and it was possible for 
any of us, especially for the brighter student, to get a 
great deal of valuable education even under these 
conditions. Mateer in later years acknowledges his 
indebtedness to all of the faculty, but particularly to 
Dr. A. B. Brown, who was our president up to the 
latter part of our senior year; to Dr. Alden, who 
succeeded him; and to Professor Eraser, who held the 
chair of mathematics. Dr. Brown was much admired 
by the students for his rhetorical ability in the pulpit 
and out of it. Dr. Alden was quite in contrast to 
his predecessor as to many things. He had long been 
a teacher, and was clear and concise in his intellectual 
efforts. Mateer said, late in Hfe, that from his drill 
in moral science he "got more good than from any 
other one branch in the course." Professor Eraser 
was a brilliant, all-round scholar of the best type then 
prevalent, and had the enthusiastic admiration even 
of those students who were little able to appreciate 
his teaching. In the physical sciences the course 
was necessarily still Hmited and somewhat elementary. 
His classmates remember the evident mastery which 
Mateer had of all that was attempted by instruction 
or by experimentation in that department. It was 
not possible to get much of what is called "culture" 



THE MAKING OF THE MAN 37 

out of the curriculum, and that through no fault of 
the faculty; yet for the stimulation of the intellectual 
powers and the unfolding of character there was an 
opportunity such as may be seriously lacking in the 
conditions of college instruction in recent years. 

These were the palmy days of Jefferson College. 
She drew to herself students not only from Pennsyl- 
vania and the contiguous states, but also from the 
more distant regions of the west and the south. We 
were dumped down there, a heterogeneous lot of 
young fellows, and outside of the classroom we were 
left for the most part to care for ourselves. We 
had no luxuries and we were short of comforts. We 
got enough to eat, of a very plain sort, and we got it 
cheap. We were wholly unacquainted with athletics 
and other intercollegiate goings and comings which 
now loom up so conspicuously in college Kfe; but we 
had, with rare exceptions, come from the country 
and the small towns, intent on obtaining an education 
which would help us to make the most of ourselves 
in after years. As to this, Mateer was a thoroughly 
representative student. He could not then foresee 
his future career, but he was sure that in it he dared 
not hope for success unless he made thoroughly good 
use of his present, passing opportunities. He was 
evidently a man who was there for a purpose. 

The class of 1857 ^^.s always been proud of itself, 
and not without reason. Fifty-eight of us received 
our diplomas on commencement. Among them were 
such leaders in the church as George P. Hays, David 



38 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

C. Marquis and Samuel J. NiccoUs, all of whom have 
been Moderators of the General Assembly of the 
Presbyterian Church. In the law, S. C. T. Dodd, 
for many years the principal solicitor of the Standard 
Oil Company, stands out most conspicuously. Three 
of our number have served for longer or shorter periods 
as college presidents. Of Doctors of Divinity we have 
a long list, and also a goodly number of Doctors of 
Law; and others, though they have received less 
recognition for their work, have in our judgment es- 
caped only because the world does not always know 
the worth of quiet lives. To spend years in the asso- 
ciations of such a class in college is itself an efficient 
means of education. It is a high tribute to the ability 
and the diligence of Mateer that, although he was with 
us only two years, he divided the first honor. The 
sharer with him in this distinction was the youngest 
member of the class, but a man who, in addition to 
unusual capacity, also had enjoyed the best prepara- 
tion for college then available. On the part of 
Mateer, it was not what is known as genius that 
won the honor; it was a combination of solid intel- 
lectual capacity, with hard, constant work. The fac- 
ulty assigned him the valedictory, the highest distinc- 
tion at graduation, but on his own solicitation, this 
was given to the other first honor man. 

In a letter sent by him from Wei Hsien, China, 
September 4, 1907, in answer to a message addressed 
to him by the little remnant of his classmates who 
assembled at Canonsburg a couple of months earlier, 



THE MAKING OF THE MAN 39 

to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of their gradua- 
tion, he said: 

It was with very peculiar feelings of pleasure 
mingled with sadness that I read what was done by 
you at your meeting. The distance that separated 
me from you all adds a pecuKar emphasis to my 
feehngs, suggestive of loneliness. I have never been 
homesick in China. I would not be elsewhere than 
where I am, nor doing any other work than what I am 
doing. Yet when I read over the account of that 
meeting in Canonsburg my feehngs were such as I 
have rarely had before. Separated by half the cir- 
cumference of the globe for full forty-four years, yet 
in the retrospect the friendship formed in these years 
of fellowship in study seems to grow fresher and 
stronger as our numbers grow less. A busy Hfe gives 
little time for retrospection, yet I often think of college 
days and college friends. Very few things in my 
early hfe have preserved their impression so well. 
I can still repeat the roll of our class, and I remember 
well how we sat in that old recitation room of Pro- 
fessor Jones [physics and chemistry]. I am in the 
second half of my seventy-second year, strong and 
well. China has agreed with me. I have spent my 
hfe itinerating, teaching and translating, with chief 
strength on teaching. But with us all who are left, 
the meridian of life is past, and the evening draws 
on. Yet a few of us have still some work to do. Let 
us strive to do it well, and add what we can to the 
aggregate achievement of the class's Hfe work — a 
record of which I trust none of us may be ashamed. 

In the unanticipated privilege of writing this book 
I am trying to fulfill that wish of our revered classmate. 



Ill 

FINDING HIS LIFE WORK 

"From my youth I had the missionary work before me as a 
dim vision. A half -formed resolution was all the while in my 
mind, though I spoke of it to no one. But for this it is question- 
able whether I would have given up teaching to go to the 
Seminary. After long consideration and many prayers I 
offered myself to the Board, and was accepted." — ^autobi- 
ographical SKETCH for college class anniversary, 1897. 

IN the four sentences at the head of this chapter we 
have a condensed outline of the process by which 
Calvin Mateer came to be a foreign missionary. 
In his case it did not, as in the antecedent experience 
of most other clergymen who have given themselves 
to this work, start with an attraction first toward the 
ministry, and then toward the missionary service; 
but just the reverse. In order to understand this 
we need to go back again to "the old home," and 
especially to his mother. We are fortunate here in 
having the veil of the past lifted by Mrs. Kirkwood, 
as one outside of the family could not do, or, even if 
he could, would hesitate to do. 

Long before her marriage, when indeed but a 
young girl, Mary Nelson Diven [Calvin's mother] 
heard an appeal for the Sandwich Islands made by 
the elder Dr. Forbes, one of the early missionaries of 
the American Board, to those islands. He asked for 
a box of supplies. There was not much missionary 

40 



FINDING HIS LIFE WORK 41 

interest in the little church of Dillsburg, York County, 
Pennsylvania, of which she was a member; for the 
Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions had not been 
organized, and the American Board had not attained 
its majority. Her pastor sympathized with the newly 
awakened zeal and interest of his young parishioner, 
when she proposed to canvass the congregation in 
response to Dr. Forbes's appeal. The box v/as secured 
and sent. This was the seed that germinated in her 
heart so early and bore fruit through the whole of her 
long Hfe. 

When in her nineteenth year she was married to 
John Mateer, hers was a marriage in the Lord; 
and together she and her husband consecrated their 
children in their infancy to his service. This con- 
secration was not a form; they were laid upon the 
altar and never taken back. Through all the self- 
denying struggles to secure their education, one aim 
was steadily kept in view, that of fitting them either 
to carry the gospel to some heathen land, or to do 
the Lord's work in their own land. 

In addition to the foreign missionary periodicals, 
a number of biographies of foreign missionaries were 
secured and were read by all the family. Not only 
did this mother try to awaken in her children an 
interest in missions through missionary literature, 
but she devised means to strengthen and make 
permanent this interest, to furnish channels through 
which these feelings and impulses might flow toward 
practical results. One of these was a missionary 
mite box which she fashioned with her own hands, 
away back in the early forties, before the mite boxes 
had been scattered broadcast in the land. Quaint 
indeed it was, this plain Httle wooden box, covered 
with small-figured wall paper. Placed upon the 



42 CALVIX WILSON MATEER 

parlor mantel, it soon became the shrine of the 
children's devotion. Xo labor or seh-denial on their 
part was considered too great to secxire pennies for 
'•the missionary' bos.'' Few pennies were spent for 
seh-indiilgence after that box was put in place, and 
overflowing was the dehght when some unwonted 
good fortune made it possible to drop in silver coins — 
" six-and-a-fourthbits/' or " eleven-penny bits." Most 
of the onerings were secured by such seh- denials as 
foregoing coffee, sugar, or butter. There was not 
at that time much opportimity for coimtry children 
to earn even pennies. The ''red-letter'' day of all 
the year was when the box was opened and the 
pennies were coimted. 

This earnest-hearted mother had counted the cost 
of what she was doing in thus educating her children 
into the missionar}* spirit. "When her first-born 
turned his face toward the heathen world, there was 
no drawing back — freely she gave him to the work. 
As one after another of her children offered them- 
selves to the Foreign Board, she rejoiced in the 
honor God had put upon her, never shrinking from 
the heart strain the separation from her children 
must bring. She only made them more special objects 
of prayer, thus transmuting her personal care-taking 
to faith. She Hved to see four of her children in China. 

This explains how it came about that this elder 
son, from youth, had before him the missionary- work 
as ''a dim \'ision.'' and that ''*a half-formed reso- 
lution" to take it up was all the while in his mind. 

WTien he graduated from college, he had made no 
decision as to his Hfe work. During the years pre- 
ceding he at no time put aside the claims of missions, 



FINDING HIS LIFE WORK 43 

and consequently of the ministry, upon him. and in 
various ways he showed his interest in that Kne of 
Christian ser^-ice. As he saw the situation the choice 
seemed mainly to He between this on the one hand, 
and teaching on the other. Before he graduated he 
had the offer of a place in the corps of instructors 
for the Lawrence\dlle (New Jersey; school, since 
gro^^Ti into such magnitude and esteem as a boys' 
preparator}' institution; but the conditions were 
not such that he felt justiiied in accepting. Un- 
forttmately, there is a blank in his Journal for the 
period between ]SIarch 4. 1857, some six months 
before he received his diploma at Jefferson, and 
October 24, 1859, when he had already been a good 
while in the theological seminar}-; and to supply 
it scarcely any of his letters are available. In the 
autobiographical sketch already noticed he says: 

From college I went to take charge of the acad- 
emy at Beaver, Pennsylvania. I found it run do^n 
almost to nothing, so that the first term (hah year) 
it hardly paid me my board. I was on my mettle, 
however, and determ in ed not to fail. I taught and 
lecttued and advertised, making friends as fast as 
I could. I found the school with about twenty 
boys, all day scholars; I left it at the end of the third 
term with ninety, of whom thirty were boarders. 
I could easily have gone on and made money, but 
I felt that I was called to preach the gospel, and so, 
I sold out my school and went to Allegheny [Western 
Theological Seminar}*], entering when the first year 
was half over. 



44 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

One of his pupils at Beaver was J. R. Miller, D.D., 
a distinguished minister of the gospel in Philadelphia; 
and very widely known especially as the author of 
solid but popular religious books. Writing of his 
experience at the Beaver Academy, he says: 

When I first entered, the principal was Mr. 
Mateer. The first night I was there, my room was 
not ready, and I slept with him in his room. I can 
never forget the words of encouragement and cheer 
he spoke that night, to a homesick boy, away for 
almost the first time from his father and mother. . 
. . . My contact with him came just at the time 
when my whole Kfe was in such plastic form that 
influence of whatever character became permanent. 
He was an excellent teacher. His personal influence 
over me was very great. I suppose that when the 
records are all known, it will be seen that no other 
man did so much for the shaping of my fife as he did. 

While at Beaver he at last decided that he was 
called of God. to study for the ministry, but called 
not by any extraordinary external sign or inward ex- 
perience. It was a sense of duty that determined 
him, and although he obeyed wilHngly, yet it was not 
without a struggle. He had a consciousness of abihty 
to succeed as a teacher or in other vocations; and he 
was by no means without ambition to make his mark 
in the world. Because he was convinced by long 
and careful and prayerful consideration that he ought 
to become a minister he put aside all the other pur- 
suits that might have opened to him. Not long 
after he entered the seminary he wrote to his mother: 



FINDING HIS LIFE WORK 45 

"You truly characterize the work for which I am 
now preparing as a great and glorious one. I have 
long looked forward to it, though scarcely daring 
to think it my duty to engage in it. After much 
pondering in my own mind, and prayer for direc- 
tion I have thought it my duty to preach." 

On account of teaching, as already related, he did 
not enter the theological seminary until more than 
a year after I did, so that I was not his classmate 
there. He came some months late in the school 
year, and had at first much back work to make up; 
but he soon showed that he ranked among the very 
best students. His classmate. Rev. John H. Sher- 
rard, of Pittsburg, writes: 

One thing I do well remember about Mateer: his 
mental superiority impressed everyone, as also his 
deep spirituality. In some respects, indeed most, 
he stood head and shoulders above his fellows around 
him. 

Another classmate. Rev. Dr. William Gaston, of 
Cleveland, says: 

We regarded him as one of our most level-headed 
men; our peer in all points; not good merely in one 
point, but most thorough in all branches of study. 
He was cheerful and yet not flippant, and with a 
tinge of the most serious. He was optimistic, dwell- 
ing much on God's great love. . . . He was not 
only a year in advance of most of us in graduating 
from college, but I think that we, as students, felt 
that though we were classmates in the seminary, 
he was in advance of us in other things. Life seemed 



46 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

more serious to him. I doubt if any one of us felt 
the responsibihty of Kfe as much as he did. I doubt 
if anyone worked as hard as he. 

The Western Theological Seminary, during the 
period of Mateer's attendance, was at the high-water 
mark of prosperity. The general catalogue shows 
an enrollment of sixty-one men in his class; the total 
in all classes hovered about one hundred and fifty. 
In the faculty there were only four members, and, 
estimated by the speciaHzations common in our 
theological schools to-day, they could not adequately 
do all their work; and this was the more true of them, 
because all save one of them eked out his scanty 
salary by taking charge of a city church. But they 
did better than might now be thought possible; 
and especially was this practicable because of the 
Kmited curriculum then prescribed, and followed by 
all students. Dr. David ElKott was still at work, 
though beyond the age when he was at his best. 
Samuel J. Wilson was just starting in his brilKant 
though brief career, and commanded a pecuHar 
attachment from his pupils. Dr. Jacobus was 
widely kno'v\Ti and appreciated for his popular com- 
mentaries. However, the member of the faculty 
who left the deepest impress on Mateer was Dr. 
William S. Plumer. Nor in this was his case excep- 
tional. We all knew that Dr. Plumer w^as not in the 
very first rank of theologians. We often missed in 
his lectures the marks of very broad and deep scholar- 
ship. But as a teacher he nevertheless made upon 



FINDING HIS LIFE WORK 47 

our minds an impression that was so great and lasting 
that in all our subsequent lives we have continued 
to rejoice in having been under his training. Best 
of all was his general influence on the students. We 
doubt whether in the theological seminaries of the 
Presbyterian Church of the United States it has 
ever been equaled, except by Archibald Alexander 
of Princeton. The dominant element of that in- 
fluence was a magniflcent personality saturated with 
the warmest and most tender piety, having its source 
in love for the h^'ing, personal Saviour. For Dr. 
Plumer, Mateer had then a very high degree of 
reverent affection, and he never lost it. 

SpirituaUy, the condition of the seminary while 
Mateer was there was away above the ordinary. 
In the winter of 1857-58 a great revival had swept 
over the United States, and across the Atlantic. 
In no place was it more in evidence than in the theo- 
logical schools; it quickened immensely the spiritual 
life of the majority of the students. One of its 
fruits there was the awakening of a far more intense 
interest in foreign missions. I can still recall the 
satisfaction which some of us who in the seminary 
were turning our faces toward the unevangehzed 
nations had in the information that this strong man 
who stood in the very first rank as to character and 
scholarship had decided to ofl'er himself to the Board 
of Foreign Missions for such ser\dce as they might 
select for him. It was a fitting consummation of 
his college and seminary Hfe. 



48 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

Yet it was only slowly, even in the seminary, and 
after much searching of his own heart and much 
wrestling in prayer, that he came to this decision. 
Outside of himself there was a good deal that tended 
to impel him toward it. The faculty, and especially 
Dr. Plumer, did all they could wisely to press on the 
students the call of the unevangelized nations for 
the gospel. Representatives of this cause — mission- 
aries and secretaries — \dsited the seminary, where 
there were, at that time, more than an ordinary 
number of young men who had caught the missionary 
spirit. In college, Mateer, without seeking to iso- 
late himself from others, had come into real intimacy 
Tvdth scarcely any of his fellow-students. He says 
in the autobiographical sketch, ^'I minded my own 
business, making comparatively few friends outside 
of my own class, largely because I was too bashful 
to push my way." In the seminary he, while still 
rather reserved, came nearer to some of his feUow- 
theologues; and especially to one, D wight B. Hervey, 
who shared with him the struggle over duty as to a 
field of ser\ace. They seem to have been much in 
conference on that subject. 

On the 2ist of January, i860, he presented himself 
before the Presbytery of Ohio, to which the churches 
of Pittsburg belonged, passed examination in his 
coUege studies, and was received under the care of 
that body; but he had not then made up his mind to 
be a missionary. On the 12th of April of the same 
year he went before the Presbytery of Butler, at 



FINDING HIS LIFE WORK 49 

Butler, Pennsylvania (having at his own request 
been transferred to the care of that organization, 
because his parents' home was now within its bounds), 
and was licensed to preach. Yet still he had not 
decided to be a missionary. He was powerfully 
drawn toward that work, and vacillation at no time 
in his life was a characteristic; there simply was as 
yet no need that he should finally make up his mind, 
and he wished to avoid any premature committal 
of himself, which later he might regret, or which 
he might feel bound to recall. 

The summer of i860 he spent in preaching here and 
there about Pittsburg, several months being given to 
the Plains and Fairmount churches; followed by a 
visit home, and another in Illinois. 

When the seminary opened in the autumn, he was 
back in his place. One of the duties which fell to him 
was to preach a missionary sermon before the Society 
of Inquiry. He did this so well that the students by 
vote expressed a desire that the sermon should be 
published. In his Journal he notes that the prepara- 
tion of this discourse ^'strengthened his determination 
to give himself to this work." Before the Christmas 
recess Dr. J. Leighton Wilson, one of the secretaries 
of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, 
visited the seminary, and in conference did much to 
stimulate the missionary spirit. He found in Mateer 
an eager and responsive Hstener. On the 12 th of 
December Mateer wrote a long letter to his mother, 
in which he expresses feehng, because without warrant 
4 



50 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

some one had told her that he had offered himself to 
the Foreign Board. He says, ''I am not going to 
take such an important step without informing you 
of it directly and expHcitly." Then he proceeds to 
teil her just what was his attitude at that time: 

I have thought of the missionary work this long 
time, but not very seriously until within the last 
couple of years. Ever since I came to the seminary 
I have had a conviction to some degree that I ought 
to go as a missionary. That conviction has been 
constantly grovx^ing and deepening, and more especially 
of late. I have about concluded that so far as I am 
myself concerned it is my duty to be a missionary. I 
have thought a great deal on this subject and I think 
that I have not come to such a conclusion hastily. 
It has cost me very considerable effort to give up the 
prospects which I might have had at home. The 
matter in almost every view you can take of it in- 
volves trial and self-denial. I need great grace, — for 
this I pray. But even if I have prospects of usefulness 
at home, surely nothing can be lost in this respect by 
doing what I am convinced is my duty. Indeed, one 
of the encouraging features, in fact the great encour- 
agement, is a prospect of more extended usefulness 
than at home. This may seem not to be so at the 
first view, but a more careful consideration of aU the 
aspects of the case will, I think, bring a different 
conclusion. 

The letter is very full, and lays bare his whole mind 
and heart as he would be willing to do only to his 
m^other. It is a revelation of this strong, self-reliant, 
mature but filial-spirited and tenderly thoughtful 



FINDING HIS LIFE WORK 51 

young Christian man and prospective minister, to a 
mother whom he recognized as deserving an affectionate 
consideration such as he owed to no other created being. 

On the 7th of January, 186 1, he received a letter 
from his mother, in which she gave her consent that 
he should be a foreign missionary, naming only one 
or two conditions which involved no insuperable 
difficulty. In a student prayer meeting about three 
weeks later he took occasion in some remarks to tell 
them that he had decided to offer himself for this work. 
Still, it was not until the 5 th of April, and when within 
two weeks of graduation, that he, in a full and formal 
letter, such as is expected and is appropriate, offered 
himself to the Board. In his Journal of that date, 
after recording the character of his letter, he says: 
"This is a solemn and important step which I have 
now taken. During this week, while writing this 
letter, I have, I trust, looked again at the whole 
matter, and asked help and guidance from God. 
I fully beheve it is my duty to go. My greatest 
fear has been that I was not as willing to go as I 
should be, but I cast myself on Christ and go forward," 
On the 13th of April he received word from the Board 
that he had been accepted, the time of his going out 
and his field of labor being yet undetermined. 

So the problem of his hfe work was at length solved, 
as surely as it could be by human agency. It had 
been his mother's wish that he should wait a year 
before going to his field, and to this he had no serious 
objection; but as matters turned out, more than two 



52 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

years elapsed before he was able to leave this country. 
This long delay was- caused by the outbreak of the 
Civil War, and the financial stringency which made 
it impossible for the Foreign Board to assume any 
additional obhgations. Much of the time the outlook 
was so dark that he almost abandoned hope of enter- 
ing on his chosen work, though the thought of this 
filled his heart with grief. He was intensely loyal to 
the cause of the Union, and if he had not been a 
Hcentiate for the ministry he almost certainly would 
have enhsted in the army. He records his determina- 
tion to go if drafted. Once, indeed, during this 
period of waiting he was a sort of candidate for a 
chaplaincy to a regiment, which fortimately he did 
not secure. For several months he preached here 
and there in the churches of the general region about 
Pittsburg, and also made a visit to towns in central 
Ohio, one of these being Delaware, the seat of the 
Ohio Wesleyan University. Not long afterward he 
received an urgent request from the Old School 
Presbyterian Church in that town to come and supply 
them. About the same time the churches of Fair- 
mount and Plains in Pennsylvania gave him a formal 
call to become their pastor, but this he declined. 
He accepted the invitation to Delaware, I suppose 
partly because it left him free still to go as a missionary 
whenever the way might open. At Delaware he 
remained eighteen months, imtil at last, in the good 
providence of God, he was ordered "to the front" out 
in China. 



FINDING HIS LIFE WORK 53 

The story of his service of the church in that place 
need not be told here except in brief. It must, how- 
ever, be clearly stated that it was in the highest degree 
creditable to him. In fact, the conditions were such 
that one may see in it a providential training in the 
courage and patience and faithfulness which in later 
years he needed to exercise on the mission field. The 
church was weak, and was overshadowed somewhat 
even among the Presbyterian element by a larger and 
less handicapped New School organization; and was 
sorely distressed by internal troubles. For a while 
after Mateer came, it was a question whether it could 
be resuscitated from its apparently dying state. At 
the end of his period of service it was once more alive, 
comparatively united, and anxious to have him remain 
as pastor. 

On November 12, 1862, while in charge of the church 
at Delaware, he was ordained to the full work of the 
ministry, as an evangelist, by the Presbytery of 
Marion, in session at Delaware. 

On December 27, 1862, he was married in Delaware, 
at the home of her uncle, to Miss Julia A. Brown, of 
Mt. Gilead, Ohio. Two years before they were 
already sufficiently well acquainted to interchange 
friendly letters; later their friendship ripened into 
mutual love; and now, after an eight months' en- 
gagement, they were united for life. Mateer says 
in his Journal, ''The wedding was very small and 
quiet; though it was not wanting in merriment," and 
naively adds, ''Found marrying not half so hard as 



54 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

proposing.'' Julia, as he ever afterward calls her, 
was a superbly good wife for him. In her own home, 
in the schoolroom, in the oversight of the Chinese 
boys and girls who were their pupils, in the preparation 
of her "Music Book," in her labors for the evangeliza- 
tion of the women, in her journeyings, — hindered as 
she was most of the time by broken health, — she 
effectively toiled on, until at last, after thirty-five 
years of missionary service, her husband laid away all 
of her that was mortal in the httle cemetery east of 
the city of Tengchow, by the side of her sister, Maggie 
(Mrs. Capp), who had died in the same service, and 
of other missionary friends who had gone on before 
her. 

When they were married they were still left in great 
uncertainty as to the time when the Board could send 
them out, or, indeed, whether the Board could send 
them out at all. They went on their bridal trip to 
his parents' home in western Pennsylvania, reaching 
there on Wednesday, December 3 1 . Just a week after- 
ward he received a letter from the Board announcing 
their readiness to send them to China. The record of 
his Journal deserves to be given here in full. 

Scarcely anything in my life ever came so unex- 
pectedly. A peal of thunder in the clear winter sky 
would not have surprised us more. The letter was 
handed me in the morning when I came downstairs 
at grandfather's. After reading it, I took it upstairs 
and read it to " my Jewel. ' ' In less than three minutes 
I think our minds were made up. Her first exclama- 



FINDING HIS LIFE WORK 55 

tion after hearing the letter I shall not forget: ''Oh, 
I am glad ! " That was the right ring for a missionary: 
no long-drawn, sorrowful sigh, but the straight-out, 
noble, self-sacrihcing, ''Oh, I am gladl" I shall re- 
member that tune, that look, that expression. If I 
did not say, I felt, the same. I think I can truly say 
I was and am glad. My hfelong aspiration is yet to 
be realized. I shall yet spend my life and lay my 
bones in a heathen land. I had fully made up my 
mind . to labor in this coimtry , and most likely for 
some time in Delaware; but how suddenly everything 
is changed 1 The only regret I feel is that I am not 
five years younger. WTiat a great advantage it would 
give me in acquiring the language! But so it is, and 
Pro\'idence made it so. I had despaired of going, 
and despairing I was greatly perplexed to imderstand 
the leadings of Providence in directing my mind so 
strongly to the work, and bringing me so near to the 
point of going before. Now I understand the matter 
better. Now I see that my strong persuasion that I 
would yet go was right. God did not deceive me. 
He only led me by a way that I knew not. Just when 
the darkness seemed to be greatest, then the sun 
shone suddenly out. How strange it all seems! 
The way was all closed; no funds to send out men to 
China; and I could not go. Suddenly two mission- 
aries die, and the health of another fails; and the 
Board feels constrained to send out one man at least, 
to supply their place; and so the door opens to me. 
And I mil enter it, for Providence has surely opened 
it. As I have given myself to this work, and hold 
myself in readiness to go, I mil not retrace my steps 
now. Having put my hand to the plow, I will not 
look back. I do not wish to. It is true, however, 
that preaching a year and a half has bound strong 



56 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

cords around me to keep me here. I cannot go so 
easily now as I might have done when I first left the 
seminary. It will be a sore trial to tear myself 
away from the folks at Delaware. They ^ill try 
hard, I know, to retain me; but I think my mind is 
set, and I must go. I must go; I am glad to go; 
I will go. The Lord will provide for Delaware. I 
commit the work there to his hands. I trust and 
beHeve that he will carry it on, and that it will yet 
appear that my labor there has not been in vain. 
Yesterday I was twenty-seven years old. I hope to 
chronicle my next birthday in China. The Lord 
has spared me twenty-seven years in my native land. 
Will he give me as many in China! Grant it, O 
Lord, and strengthen me mightily to spend them all 
for thee! 

This strong, persistent, conscientious, self-con- 
trolled, consecrated man had found his life work at 
last. 



IV 

GONE TO THE FRONT 

"If there had been no other way to get back to America, 
than through such another experience, it is doubtful whether 
I should ever have seen my native land again." — ^autobio- 
graphical SKETCH, 1897. 

THE choice of the country to which he should 
go as a missionary had been with him a 
subject of earnest consideration and prayer. 
He says in his Journal, under date of September 12, 
1862: 

The Board wished me to go to Canton, China, at 
first. This was altogether against my inclinations 
and previous plans; but the Board would not send 
me anywhere else, until in the last letter they offered 
to send me to Japan; I have long had thoughts of 
northern India or of Africa; and especially have I 
wished to go to some new mission where the ground 
is unoccupied, and where I would not be entrammeled 
by rules and rigid instructions. The languages of 
eastern Asia are also exceedingly difficult and the 
missionary work is pecuKarly discouraging among that 
people. 

Two days later, however, he sent the Board a 
letter saying that he would go to Japan. When his 
field finally was specifically designated, it was north 
China. He was to be stationed at Tengchow, a port 

57 



58 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

that had been opened to foreign commerce in the 
province of Shantung. 

The Mateers remained at Delaware until late in 
April. Until that time he continued in charge of his 
church. In a touching farewell service they took 
leave of their people, and traveled by slow stages 
toward New York. 

Going to live in China was then so much more seri- 
ous a matter than it is now that we can scarcely 
appreciate the leave-takings that fell to the lot of 
these two young missionaries. The hardest trial of 
all was to say good-by to mother and to father, and 
to brothers and sisters, some of whom were yet small 
children, and for whom he felt that he might do so 
much if not separated from them by half the distance 
round the world. 

At length on July 3, 1863, they embarked at New 
York on the ship that was to carry them far to the 
south of the Cape of Good Hope, then eastward 
almost in sight of the northern shores of AustraKa, 
and finally, by the long outside route, up north again 
to Shanghai. They were one hundred and sixty-five 
days, or only about two weeks short of half a year, 
in making the voyage. During that long period they 
never touched land. It needs to be borne in mind that 
in 1863 the Suez Canal had only been begun; that 
the railroads across our continent had not been built; 
and that no lines of passenger steamers were running 
from our western coast over to Asia. No blame, 
therefore, is chargeable to the Board of Missions for 



GONE TO THE FRONT 59 

sending out their appointees on a sailing vessel. The 
ship selected was a merchantman, though not a 
cHpper built for quick transit, was of moderate size, 
in sound condition, and capable of traveling at fairly 
good speed. Accompanying the Mateers were Hunter 
Corbett and his wife, who also had been appointed 
by the Board, for Tengchow. There were six other 
passengers, none of whom were missionaries, and, 
besides the ofhcers, there was a crew of sixteen men. 
At best the voyage could not be otherwise than 
tedious and trying. The accommodations for passen- 
gers were necessarily scant, the staterooms, being 
m^ere closets with poor ventilation, and this cut off 
in rough v/eather. The only place available for 
exercise was the poop deck, about thirty feet long; 
thus walking involved so m.uch turning as greatly to 
lessen the pleasure, and many forms of amusement com- 
mon on larger vessels were entirely shut out. Food 
on such a long voyage had to be hmited in variety, 
and must becom^e more or less stale. Of course, it 
was hot in the tropics, and it was cold away south of 
the equator, and again up north in November and 
December. Seasickness is a malady from which 
exemption could not be expected. When a company 
of passengers and officers with so little in common as 
to character and aims were cooped together, for so 
long a time, in narrow quarters, where they must 
constantly come into close contact, a serious lack of 
congeniality and some friction might be expected to 
develop among them. 



60 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

The ship also, on that voyage, encountered distinc- 
tive annoyances and dangers. For weeks after they 
sailed they were in constant dread of Confederate 
privateers. Once they were so sure that they were 
about to be captured by a ship which they mistook for 
one of these destroyers of American commerce that 
they hastily prepared as well as they could for such 
a catastrophe. When they sailed from New York, 
the battle of Gettysburg was in progress and still 
undecided; and it was not until October 15 when they 
were overtaken by a vessel which had sailed eleven 
days after them from New York, that their anxiety as 
to the result was reheved, and their hearts were thrilled 
with exultation, by the news that Meade was victori- 
ous, and also that Vicksburg had fallen. Out among 
the islands to the northeast of Australia the ship was 
caught in a current, and was forced so rapidly and 
nearly on the wild, rocky shores of an uncivilized 
island that the captain himself despaired of escaping 
wreck. Providentially a breeze from the land sprang 
up and carried them out of danger. They were 
overtaken by no severe storms. Several times their 
patience was sorely tested by protracted calms; 
in the Pacific it once took them seventeen days to 
make three hundred and forty miles. 

All of these things lay beyond the control of the 
officers and crew, and the missionaries accepted them 
as trials to which they ought quietly and patiently to 
submit. But imagine as added to this a half year's 
subjection to the arbitrary and autocratic rule of a 



GONE TO THE FRONT 61 

captain who was ignorant except as to seamanship; 
who was coarse and constantly profane in speech; who 
was tyrannical and brutal so far as he dared to be, 
and yet when boldly faced by those who were able to 
bring him to account for his conduct was a con- 
temptible coward; who skimped the people on board of 
food adequate in quantity or decently fit in quality, 
partly because of stingy greed, and partly from a 
desire thus to gratify his malignant disposition; who 
hated missionaries and seemed to have a special 
pleasure in making their lives on his ship as un- 
comfortable as possible; who barely tolerated such 
rehgious observances as the asking of a blessing at 
meals, or a service for social worship on the Sabbath 
in the cabin, and who forbade all attempts to do any 
rehgious work, even by conversation, among the crew; 
who was capable of descending to various petty mean- 
nesses in order to gratify his base inclinations; and 
who somehow yet managed to secure from officers 
under him a measure of sympathy and cooperation in 
his conduct. When we have as fully as possible 
grasped these things, we can understand why Dr. 
Mateer, half a Kfetime afterward, wrote to his college 
classmates that if in order to reach America it had 
been necessary to repeat the experience of that out- 
ward voyage, it is doubtful if ever again he had seen 
his native land. 

But at last this voyage was nearing its end. They 
might have reached port some days earlier, had it not 
been that all the crew except three or four had — 



62 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

through lack of proper food and other bad treatment — 
been attacked by scurvy, a disease already then having 
been almost shut out even from sailing vessels on long 
trips. On December i6 they had the happiness 
of going ashore at Shanghai, where they soon found 
a welcome in the homes of missionaries and of other 
friends. Corbett was not well, and Mateer always 
believed that the health of both JuHa and Corbett 
was permanently injured by the treatment received 
on that outward voyage. 

On the voyage the missionaries warned the captain 
that they would surely hold him to accoimt for his 
conduct, when they reached Shanghai. They kept 
their word. After consultation with the missionaries 
on the local field, with a lawyer, and with the American 
consul, they determined to proceed with formal 
charges against him. Learning of this, he lost no 
time in coming to them, and, with fear and trembling, 
he begged that they would have mercy on him. A 
second interview was appointed, but Corbett was too 
unwell to see him, and Mateer had to meet him alone. 
In his Journal he says : 

I took the paper which had been read to the consul, 
and read it to him giving copious comments and 
illustrations, at the same time asking him to explain 
or correct if he could. I never in my life gave any 
man such a lecturing. I just kept myself busy for an 
hour and a half telling him how mean and con- 
temptible a scoundrel he was. I then offered him as 
a settlement of the matter a paper which I proposed 
to publish, stating in it that he had apologized and 



GONE TO THE FRONT 63 

that we had agreed to suspend prosecution. From 
this he pled off in the most pitiful manner, saying 
that he would be ruined by it. 

The third day he came again and made such an ap- 
peal for mercy that Mateer's sympathy, and also his 
desire to avoid detention at Shanghai, led him to agree 
to accept a private apology, and to refer the matter to 
the interested parties at New York. Years afterward 
Mateer, on going aboard a coasting steamer bound for 
Shanghai, discovered that this man was the captain. 
He at once cancelled his passage, and went ashore 
until he could secure a place on another vessel. 

Tengchow is distant more than five hundred miles 
from Shanghai. The only way to reach it was by a 
second voyage northward along the coast to Chefoo, 
and thence overland. On January 3, 1864, the 
Mateers and the Corbetts went aboard the Kttle 
coasting steamer ''Swatow," bound for Chefoo. 
They had a head wind, and the ship was almost 
empty of cargo. They suffered again from seasick- 
ness, and from cold on account of lack of bed-clothing. 
On the evening of the third day out, at about half- 
past eight, they were sitting around the stove expect- 
ing soon to be at Chefoo, when suddenly the vessel 
struck the bottom and the bell rang to reverse the 
engine. Bump followed bum.p, until it seemed as if 
she must go to pieces. The captain, though not 
unfamiHar with the route, had allowed himself to be 
deceived by the masts of a sunken ship, and supposing 
this to be a vessel at anchor in the harbor of Chefoo, 



64 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

had gone in, and his steamer was now hard and fast 
on the bottom, about fifteen miles down the coast 
from his destination. We will allow Mateer in his 
Journal to tell his own story. 

All was a scene of indescribable confusion. The 
captain lost all self-possession and all authority over 
his men. Most of his crew and servants were Chinese 
or Malays, and on such an occasion the worst features 
of their character shine out. They refused to do 
anything and went to packing up their few goods and 
at the same time seizing everything they could get 
hold of. They went everywhere and into everything, 
pilfering and destroying. Meanwhile the waves were 
striking the vessel at a fearful rate, and threatening 
to break it into pieces. We knew not what to do, 
or what we could do. The mates and two passengers 
(a merchant and an English naval officer) lowered a 
boat and, pushing off, succeeded in landing and in 
making a rope fast from the ship to the shore. They 
found that we were much nearer the land than we had 
supposed. We were now in a great quandary what 
to do, whether to remain on the ship, or get in the 
boat and go ashore. We mostly inclined to remain, 
but the captain urged us to go ashore. While the 
wind remained moderate we could stay on the ship 
with safety; but if the wind should increase before 
morning we might be in danger of our lives. The 
captain said that he thought that it was not more than 
eight or nine miles to Chefoo, and he was anxious that 
word should be sent there. We at length yielded to 
his advice, and about eleven o'clock got into a boat 
and managed to get ashore through the surf. It was 
a bitter cold night, and we loaded ourselves with 
blankets which we supposed would come into requisi- 



GONE TO THE FRONT 65 

tion to keep us warm. Our party consisted of nine 
passengers (we four, Rev. Williamson and wife and 
child, and Rev. McClatchie — all missionaries — and 
Mr. Wilson, a merchant, and Mr. Riddle, a naval 
officer) and six Chinamen. Our hope was to set out in 
the direction of Chefoo, get a lodging for the ladies and 
Mr. Corbett by the way, while the rest of us pushed on 
to Chefoo to obtain assistance. We started off accord- 
ing to this plan, but soon found our way stopped by 
fields of ice, and we were compelled to turn from our 
course and seek the hills which towered up in the dis- 
tance. The walking was very fatiguing; indeed, the 
ground was covered several inches with snow, and at 
many places there were large cakes and fields of ice. 
After long and weary tramping and turning and dis- 
puting about the best way, we at length reached the 
hills. I mounted to the top of the first hill and tried 
to get the party to go up over the hill and directly 
inland until we should find a house or village. Other 
counsels prevailed, however, and we wandered along 
the foot of the hill the best part of a mile. At length 
I got in the lead, and persuaded them that no houses 
would be found unless we went inland from the barren 
beach. We then crossed the ridge at a low place and 
retraced our steps on the other side of it, and finally, 
after much urging, persuaded those who wanted to 
sit down until morning to follow on inland on the 
track of some of our Chinamen. We soon came to a 
village, which was indeed a welcome sight. We were 
cold, and our feet were wet, and we were very tired, 
especially the ladies. Our troubles were not over yet, 
however, for we could not induce any of the Chinese 
to let us in. It was now four o'clock, and we were 
suffering from the effects of five hours' wandering in 
the snow and cold. Yet they persistently closed their 



66 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

doors and kept us out, Mr. Williamson and Mr. 
McClatchie could talk to them some, yet they refused 
to receive us. 

At last, after shivering in the cold about an hour, 
we succeeded in getting into a sort of shanty, which, 
however, afforded but very poor comfort. There 
was a heated kang in it, and the ladies xnanaged to 
warm their feet on this. When it began to get light 
Mr. Riddle and Mr. Wilson started to Chefoo, thinking 
the city was only half a mile distant. This was what 
Mrs. WilKamson understood the natives to say. Some 
time after Mr. McClatchie started, supposing it was 
three miles. We made breakfast on boiled rice and 
sweet potatoes which the people brought us. 

I started back to see what had become of the ship, 
and to look after our things. I found the vessel all 
sound and everything safe. I succeeded in getting 
several trunks of mine and Mr. Williamson's landed 
on the beach, and got some of them started up to the 
village, which was at least two miles from the ship. 
Mr. WilKamson then went down and succeeded in 
getting a variety of other things brought off and carried 
up to the village. It was a beautiful calm day, but 
we feared that a gale might spring up, as gales were 
frequent in this region at that time of year. In such 
a case the vessel must quickly be broken in pieces, and 
everything destroyed. 

We now began to look around for the night, and 
it was not a very comfortable prospect. Some Eng- 
lish people came from Yentai (just across the bay 
from Chefoo) to survey the wreck of a vessel that had 
been cast away some time before at the same place, 
and they very kindly sent us some supper— their 
own, in fact — and also brought us a supply of furs 
and blankets. We had one large kang heated, and 



GONE TO THE FRONT 67 

on this five stowed themselves, covering themselves 
with the blankets, while I made a bed and slept on 
the ground. The rest of the Kttle room was filled 
with trmiks and Chinese rubbish of various kinds. 
We slept very comfortably, however, and as we were 
very tired and had not slept a wink the night before, 
our sleep was sweet and refreshing to us. We had 
great cause to be thankful for even such accommoda- 
tions in the circumstances. 

We made our breakfast on two dozen boiled eggs 
and some bread which the Englishmen had left us. 
I started immediately to the ship, intending, as the 
day was fine, to try and get as much as possible of 
the goods belonging to us off the ship, and to store 
them there until they could be taken to Yentai. As 
I came over the top of the hill and looked out on the 
sea, I saw a steamer coming which I knew was the 
Enghsh gunboat from Chefoo. My heart bounded 
with joy at the sight. At last we were to get help, 
and to reach Yentai mthout going overland. All our 
goods also would no doubt be saved. 

By land it was twenty-eight miles to Chefoo, instead 
of the short distance supposed by the men who started 
to walk, but they had persisted; and at their instiga- 
tion the gimboat had come to relieve the party left 
behind. After some failures the gimboat succeeded 
in pulling the "Swatow" into water where she again 
floated safely. The party out at the \dllage returned, 
and the goods were brought back and put on board 
the gunboat, IMateer remaining over night with the 
steamer and coming up the next day to Chefoo. 
He notices in his Journal that although Corbett was 



68 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

in a very weak state, he seemed to suffer little or no 
bad effects from the first terrible night on shore; 
nor were the ladies apparently any the worse for their 
exposure. He mentions also that while some of the 
natives at the village were disposed to annoy them as 
much as possible, others of them were very kind, and 
he adds, ''Never before did I feel my helpless condi- 
tion so much as among those natives, with whom I 
could not speak a single word." 

Of course, they received a hearty welcome from the 
missionaries at Chefoo. On the following Wednes- 
day they started for Tengchow, fifty-five miles away, 
traveling by shentza — a mode of travel peculiar to 
China, and developed largely because of the almost 
complete absence of anything like good wagon roads. 
It is simply a sort of covered litter, sustained between 
two mules, one in advance of the other; in it one 
reclines, and is jolted up and down by the motion of 
the animals, each going after his own fashion over 
rough paths which lead without plan across the plains 
and hills. Mateer's Journal says of that trip: 

We rode about fifteen miles and stopped for the 
night at a Chinese inn. We had brought our eatables 
along, and, having got some tea, we made a very good 
supper, and we went to bed all together on a Chinese 
kang heated up to keep us warm. Next morning it 
was bitter cold, and we did not get started until about 
ten o'clock. I made them turn my shentza and 
Julia's around [that is, with the open front away from 
the wind] or I do not know what we should have done. 
About five o'clock our cavalcade turned into an inn, 



GONE TO THE FRONT 69 

and we soon found to our chagrin and vexation that 
we were doomed to spend another night in a Chinese 
inn; which, by the way, is anything but a comfortable 
place on a cold night. We made the best of it, how- 
ever, and the next morning we were off again for 
Tengchow, where we arrived safely about two o'clock. 
At last our journeying was over, — set down on the field 
of our labor. 

They had reached the front. This was early in 
January, 1864. 



THE NEW HOME 

"Our new house is now done, and we are comfortably fLxed 
in it. It suits us exactly, and my impression is that it will suit 
anyone who may come after us. . . , My prayer is that 
God will spare us to hve in it many years, and bless us in doing 
much work for his glory." — letter to secretary lowrie, 
December 24, 1867. 

TENGCHOW is one of the cities officially 
opened as a port for foreign commerce, under 
the treaty of Tientsin, which went into actual 
effect in i860. Although a place of seventy thousand 
or more inhabitants, and cleaner and more health- 
ful than most Chinese towns, it has not attracted 
people from western nations, except a Kttle band 
of missionaries. The harbor does not afford good 
anchorage; so it has not been favorable to foreign 
commerce. 

When the Mateers came to Tengchow, missionary 
operations had already been begun both by the South- 
ern Baptists and the American Presbyterians, though 
in a very small way. In fact, throughout the whole 
of China, — according to the best statistics available, — 
there were then on that immense field only something 
more than a hundred ordained Protestant mission- 
aries, and as many female missionaries. There were 
also a few physicians and printers. The number of 

70 



THE NEW HOME 71 

native preachers was about two hundred and fifty, 
and of colporteurs about the same. Fev/ of these col- 
porteurs and native preachers were full ministers of 
the gospel. There were sixteen stations, and perhaps 
a hundred out-stations. The Chinese converts aggre- 
gated thirty-five hundred. 

In all Shantung, with its many milHons of people, 
the only places at which any attempt had been made 
to estabhsh stations were Chefoo and Tengchow, both 
on the seacoast. The Baptists reached the latter 
of these cities in the autumn of i860. They were 
followed very soon afterward by Messrs. Danforth 
and Gayley and their wives, of the Presbyterian 
Board; and the next summer Mr. and Mrs. Nevius 
came up from Ningpo and joined them. 

The natives seemed to be less positively unfriendly 
than those of many other parts of China are even 
to this day; yet it was only with protracted and per- 
plexing difficulties that houses in which to live could 
be obtained. Not long after this was accomplished, 
Mrs. Danforth sickened and died, and was laid iq 
the first Christian grave at Tengchow. Then came 
a "rebel," or rather a robber invasion, that carried 
desolation and death far and wide in that part of 
Shantung, and up to the very walls of Tengchow, 
and left the city and country in a deplorable condition 
of poverty and wretchedness. Two of the Baptist 
missionaries went out to parley with these marauders, 
and were cut to pieces. Next ensued a period dur- 
ing which rumors were rife among the people that 



72 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

the missionaries, by putting medicine in the wells, 
and by other means, practiced witchcraft; and this 
kept away many who otherwise might have ventured 
to hear the gospel, and came near to producing 
serious danger. After this followed a severe epidemic 
of cholera, filling the houses and the streets with 
funerals and with mourning. For a while the mission- 
aries escaped, and did what they could for the Chinese 
patients; but they were soon themselves attacked; 
and then they had to give their time and strength 
to ministering to their own sick, and to burying their 
own dead. Mr. Gayley first, and then his child, 
died, and a child of one of the Baptist missionaries. 
Others were stricken but recovered. The epidemic 
lasted longest among the Chinese, and this afforded 
the missionaries opportunity to save many lives by 
prompt application of remedies; and so tended 
greatly to remove prejudice and to open the way 
for the gospel. Ten persons were admitted to mem- 
bership in the church, the first fruits of the harvest 
which has ever since been gathering. But a sad 
depletion of the laborers soon afterward followed. 
Mrs. Gayley was compelled to take her remaining 
child, and go home; Mr. Danforth's health became 
such that he also had to leave; the health of Mrs. 
Nevius, which had been poor for a long time, had 
become worse and, the physician having ordered 
her away, she and her husband went south. This 
left Rev. Mr. Mills and his wife as the only represen- 
tatives of the Presbyterian Board, until the Mateers 



THE NEW HOME 73 

and Corbetts arrived, about three years after the 
beginning of the station by Danforth and Gayley. 

When the Mateers and Corbetts came they were, 
of necessity, lodged in the quarters already occupied 
by the Mills family. These consisted of no less than 
four small one-story stone buildings clustered near 
together; one used for a kitchen, another for a dining 
room, a third for a guest room, and the fourth for 
a parlor and bedroom. Each stood apart from the 
other, and without covered connection. The larger 
of them had been a temple dedicated to Kwan Yin, 
whom foreigners have called the Chinese god of 
mercy. According to the universal superstition, the 
air is full of superhuman spirits, in dread of whom 
the people of China constantly live, and to avert the 
displeasure of whom most of their religious services 
are performed. Kwan Yin, however, is an exception 
in character to the malignancy of these imaginary 
deities. There is no end to the myths that are current 
as to this god, and they all are stories of deliverance 
from trouble and danger. To him the people always 
turn with their vows and prayers and offerings, in 
any time of special need. Partly because the women 
are especially devoted to this cult, and partly because 
mercy is regarded by the Chinese as a distinctively 
female trait, the easy-going mythology of the country 
has allowed Kwan Yin, in later times, to take the 
form of a woman. When the missionaries came to 
Tengchow, the priest in charge of this temple was 
short of funds, and he was easily induced to rent 



74 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

it to them. He left the images of Kwan Yin in the 
house. Just what to do with them became a practical 
question; from its solution a boy who Hved with 
the Mateers learned a valuable lesson. When asked 
whether the idols could do anybody harm, he promptly 
replied ''No"; giving as a reason that the biggest one 
that used to be in the room where they were then 
talking was buried outside the gate ! At first a wall 
was built around the other idols, but by and by they 
were all taken down from their places and disposed 
of in various ways. Mateer speaks of a mud image 
of Kwan Yin, about four feet high, and weighing 
over two hundred pounds, still standing in his garret 
in 1870. 

The coming of these new mission families into the 
Mills residence crowded it beyond comfort, and be- 
yond convenience for the work that was imperative. 
The Mateers had the dining room assigned to them 
as their abode, this being the best that could be 
offered. Of course, little effective study could imder 
such conditions be put on the language which must 
be acquired before any direct missionary labor could 
be performed. Under the loss of time he thus was 
suffering, Mateer chafed like a caged lion; and so, 
as soon as possible, he had another room cleared of 
the goods of Mr. Nevius, which had been stored there 
until they could be shipped, and then set to work to 
build a chimney and to put the place in order for his 
own occupation. Thus he had his first experience 
of the dilatory and unskillful operations of native 



THE NEW HOME 75 

mechanics. The dining room was left without a stove, 
and, on account of the cold, something had to be done 
to supply the want. In all Tengchow such a thing as 
a stove could not be purchased; possibly one might 
have been secured at Chefoo, but most probably none 
could have been obtained short of Shanghai. The 
time had already come for Mateer to exercise his 
mechanical gifts. He says: 

Mr. Mills and I got to work to make a stove out of 
tin. We had the top and bottom of an old sheet- 
iron stove for a foundation from which we finally 
succeeded in making what proves to be a very good 
stove. We put over one hundred and sixty rivets in it 
in the process of making it. I next had my ingenuity 
taxed to make a machine to press the fine coal they 
burn here, into balls or blocks, so that we could use it. 
They have been simply setting it with a sort of gum 
water and molding it into balls with their hands. 
Thus prepared, it was too soft and porous to burn 
well. So, as it was the time of the new year, and we 
could not obtain a teacher, I got to work, and with con- 
siderable trouble, and working at a vast disadvantage 
from want of proper tools, I succeeded in making a 
machine to press the coal into solid, square blocks. 
At first it seemed as if it would be a failure, for al- 
though it pressed the coal admirably it seemed im- 
possible to get the block out of the machine success- 
fully. This was obviated, however, and it worked 
very well, and seems to be quite an institution. 

This machine subsequently he improved so that 
a boy could turn out the fuel with great rapidity. 
The house, with the best arrangements that could 



76 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

be made, was so overcrowded that relief of some sort 
was a necessity. The Corbetts, despairing of getting 
suitable accommodations for themselves, went back 
to the neighborhood of Chefoo and never returned, — 
an immense gain for Chefoo, but an equally immense 
loss for Tengchow. Mills preferred to find a new 
house for himself and family, and — after the usual 
delays and difficulties because of the unwillingness of 
the people and of the officials to allow the hated 
foreigners to get such a permanent foothold in the 
place — he at length succeeded. But that was only 
a remote step toward actual occupation. A Chinese 
house at its best estate commonly is of one story; 
and usually has no floor but the ground and no ceiling 
but the roof, or a flimsy affair made of cornstalks and 
paper. The windows have a sort of latticework 
covered with thin paper; and it is necessary to tear 
down some of the wall, in order to have a sufficient 
number of them, and to give those which do exist a 
shape suitable for sash. The doors are low, few in 
number, rudely made, and in two pieces. A Chinese 
house may be large enough, but it is usually all in one 
big room. 

It fell to these missionaries to get in order the house 
which Mills secured; and to do this in the heat of 
summer, and during a season of almost incessant down- 
pour of rain. They were obliged not merely to super- 
vise most unsatisfactory laborers, but also to do much 
of the work with their own hands. Eventually Mills 
fell sick, and Mateer alone was left to complete the 



THE NEW HOME 77 

job. Yet he records that on the first day of August 
his associate had gone to his new residence, and he and 
Julia were happy in the possession of the old temple 
for their o\vti abode. Unfortunately both of them 
were taken down with dysentery. Of the day the 
Mills family left he says in a letter to one of his 
brothers: 

Julia was able to sit up about half the day, and I 
w^as no better. You can imagine what a time we had 
getting our cooking stove up, and getting our cooking 
utensils out and in order, — no, you can't either, for 
you don't know w^hat a Chinese servant is when of 
every three words you speak to him he understands 
one, and misimderstands two. However, w^e did 
finally get the machine going, and it works pretty well. 

Here they remained three years; and, here, after 
they had built for themselves a really ''new home," 
they long continued to carry on their school w^ork. 

But experience soon con\iiiced them that a new 
dwelling house was a necessity. The buildings which 
they occupied proved to be both unhealthy and un- 
suitable for the work they were undertaking. The 
unhealthiness arose partly from the location. The 
ground in that section of the city is low, and liable to 
be submerged in the rainy season. A sluggish Kttle 
stream ran just in front of the place, passing through 
the wall by a low gate, and if this happened to be 
closed in a sudden freshet, the water sometimes rose 
within the houses. There was a floor at least in the 
main building, but it was laid upon scantlings about 



78 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

four inches thick, these being placed on the ground. 
The boards were not grooved, and as a consequence 
while making a tight enough floor in the damp season, 
in the dry it opened with cracks a quarter to half an 
inch wide. The walls were of stone, built without Hme, 
and with an excess of mud mortar, and lined on the 
inside with sun-dried brick. The result of all this 
was that the dampness extended upward several feet 
above the floor, and by discoloration showed in the 
driest season where it had been. The floor could not 
be raised without necessitating a change in the doors 
and windows, and it was doubtful whether this could 
be made with safety to the house. It is no wonder 
that, under such conditions, Mrs. Mateer began to 
suffer seriously from the rheumatism that remained 
with her all the rest of her Hfe. Added to the other 
discomforts, were the tricks played them by the ceiling. 
This consisted of cornstalks hung to the roof with 
strings, and covered on the lower side with paper 
pasted on. Occasionally a heavy rain brought this 
ceiling down on the heads of the occupants; and 
cracks were continually opening, thus rendering it 
almost impossible to keep warm in cold weather. 

An appeal was made to the Board for funds for a 
new dweUing. Happily the Civil War was about 
over, and the financial outlook was brightening; so 
in the course of a few months permission for the new 
house was granted, and an appropriation was made. 
The first thing to do was to obtain a suitable piece 
of ground on which to build. Mateer had in his own 



THE NEW HOME 79 

mind fixed on a plot adjoining the mission premises, 
and understood to be purchasable. Such transactions 
in China seldom move rapidly. He bided his time 
until the Chinese new year was close at hand, when 
everybody wants money; then, striking while the 
iron was hot, he bought the ground. 

Long before this consummation he was so confident 
that he would succeed that, foreseeing that he must be 
his own architect and superintendent, he wrote home 
to friends for specific information as to every detail 
of house-building. Nothing seems to have been over- 
looked. He even wanted to know just how the masons 
stand when at certain parts of their work. 

Early in February in 1867 he was down at Chef 00 
purchasing the brick and stone and lime; and so 
soon as the material was on hand and as the v/eather 
permitted, the actual construction was begun. It 
was an all-summer job, necessitating his subordinat- 
ing, as far as possible, all other occupations to this. 
It required a great deal of care and patience to get 
the foundations put down well, and of a proper shape 
for the superstructure which was to rest upon them. 
In his Journal he thus records the subsequent pro- 
ceedings: 

When the level of the first floor was reached I began 
the brickwork myself, laying the corners and showing 
the masons one by one how to proceed. I had no 
small amoimt of trouble before I got them broken 
in to use the right kind of trowel, which I had made 
for the purpose, and then to lay the brick in the right 



80 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

way. I had another round of showing and trouble 
when the arches at the top of the windows had to be 
turned, and then the placing of the sleepers took 
attention; and then the setting of the upper story 
doors and windows. The work went slowly on, and 
when the level was reached we had quite a raising, 
getting the plates and rafters up. All is done, how- 
ever, and to-day they began to put the roof on. . . 
. . I hope in a few days I will be able to resume my 
work again, as all the particular parts are now done, 
so that I can for the most give it into the hands of the 
Chinese to oversee. 

The early part of November, 1867, the Mateers 
lived "half in the old and half in the new." On 
November 21 they finally moved. That was Satur- 
day. In the night there came up a fierce storm of 
snow and wind. When they awoke on Sabbath 
morning, the kitchen had been filled with snow 
through a door that was blown open. The wind still 
blew so hard that the stove in the kitchen smoked 
and rendered cooking impossible. The stair door had 
not yet been hung, and the snow drifted into the hall 
and almost everywhere in the house. Stoves could 
not be set up, or anything else done toward putting 
things in order, until Thursday, when the storm 
abated. 

But they were in their new house. It was only a 
plain, two-story, brick building, with a roofed veranda 
to both stories and running across the front, a hall 
in the middle of the house with a room on either side, 
and a dining room and kitchen at the rear. Much 



THE NEW HOME 81 

of the walls is now covered by Virginia creeper, wis- 
taria, and cKmbing rose. It is one of those cozy 
missionary dwellings which censorious travelers to 
foreign lands visit, or look at from the outside; and 
then, returning to their own land, they tell about them 
as evidence of the luxury by which these represen- 
tatives of the Christian churches have surroimded 
themselves. Yet if they cared to know, and would 
examine, they would out of simple regard for the truth, 
if for no other reason, testify to the necessity of such 
homes for the health and efficiency of the missionaries, 
and as powerful indirect helps in the work of social 
betterment among the natives; and they would 
wonder at the self-sacri'fice and economy and scanty 
means by which these worthy servants of Christ 
have managed to make for themselves and their suc- 
cessors such comfortable and tasteful places of abode. 

The Mateer house stands on the compound of the 
mission of the Presbyterian Board, which is inside 
and close to the water gate in the city wall. About 
it, as the years went by, were erected a number of 
other buildings needed for various purposes. The 
whole, being interspersed with trees, combines to 
make an attractive scene. 

There was nothing pretentious about the house, 
but it was comfortable, and suited to their wants; 
and it was all the more dear to them because to such 
a large degree it had been literally built by themselves. 
Here for more than thirty-one years Julia presided, 
and here she died. After that Dr. Mateer's niece, 
6 



82 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

Miss Margaret Grier, took charge previous to her 
marriage to ]Mason Wells, and continued for some 
years subsequent to that event. To this house still 
later Dr. ]\Iateer brought Ada, who was his helpmeet 
in his declining years, and who still sur\dves. This 
was the home of Dr. Mateer from 1867 to 1904. It 
was in it and from it as a center that he performed by 
far the larger part of his Hfe work. Here the Man- 
darin Re\dsion Committee held its first meeting. 

It was always a genuine home of the most attractive 
t}^e. WTiat that means in a Christian land every 
reader can in a good degree imderstand; but where 
all aroimd is a mass of strange people, saturated with 
ignorance, prejudice, and the debased moraHty con- 
sequent on idolatry, a people of strange and often 
repulsive habits of Hving, the contrast is, as the 
Chinese visitors often used to say, "the difference 
between heaven and hell." But what most of all 
made this Httle dwelling at Tengchow a home in the 
truest sense was the love that sanctified it. Dr. 
Mateer used in his later years frequently to say: 
"In the thirty-five years of our married life, there 
never was a single jar." Nor was this true because 
in this sphere the one ruled, and the other obeyed; 
the secret of it was that between husband and wife 
there was such complete harmony that each left the 
other supreme in his or her department. 

Here many \'isitors and guests received a welcome 
and an entertainment to which such as survive still 
revert with e\ddently delightful recollections. This 



THE NEW HOME 83 

seems to be preeminently true of some who were 
children at the time when they enjoyed the hospi- 
talities of that home. Possibly some persons who 
have thought that they knew Dr. Mateer well, may 
be surprised at the revelation thus made. One of 
those who has told her experience is Miss Morrison, 
v/hose father was a missionary. He died at Peking, 
and subsequently his widow and their children re- 
moved to one of the southern stations of the Presby- 
terian Mission. It is of a visit to this new home at 
Tengchow that Miss Morrison writes. She says: 

Two of the best friends of our childhood were Dr. 
Calvin Mateer and his brother John. We spent 
two simimers at Dr. Mateer's home in Tengchow, 
seeking escape from the heat and malaria of our 
more southern region. It could not have been an 
altogether easy thing for two middle-aged people to 
take into their quiet home four youngsters of various 
ages; but Dr. and Mrs. Mateer made us very wel- 
come, and if we disturbed their peace w^e never knew 
it. I remember Mrs. Mateer as one of the most sensi- 
ble and dearest of women, and Dr. Mateer as always 
ready in any leisure moment for a froHc. We can 
still recall his long, gaunt figure, striding up and down 
the veranda, with my Httle sister perched upon his 
shoulders and holding on by the tips of his ears. She 
called him ''the camel," and I imagine that she felt 
during her rides very much the same sense of perilous 
delight that she would have experienced if seated on 
the hump of one of the tall, shaggy beasts that we had 
seen swinging along, bringing coal into Peking. 

Dr. Mateer loved a little fun at our expense. What 
a beautiful, mirthful smile lit up his rugged features 



84 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

when playing with children ! He had what seemed to 
us a tremendous ball, — I suppose that it was a foot- 
ball, — which he used to throw after us. We would 
run in great excitement, trying to escape the baU, 
but the big, black thing would come bounding after 
us, laying us low so soon as it reached us. Then with 
a few long steps he would overtake us, and beat us 
with his newspaper till it was all in tatters. Then 
he would scold us for tearing up his paper. I remem- 
ber not quite knowing whether to take him in earnest, 
but being reassured so soon as I looked up into the 
laughing face of my older sister. 

Of other romps she also tells at length. Several 
old acquaintances speak of his love of children, and 
of his readiness to enter iato the playfulness of their 
young Hves. He dearly loved all fun of an innocent 
sort; perhaps it is because of the contrast with his 
usual behavior that so many persons seem to put 
special emphasis on this feature of his character. 

In those early days Pei-taiho in the north, and 
Kuling and Mokansan in the south, had not been 
opened as summer resorts. Chefoo and Tengchow 
were the only places available for such a purpose, 
and there were in neither of them any houses to receive 
guests, unless the missionaries opened theirs. Teng- 
chow became very popular, on account of the beauty 
of its situation, the comparative cleanness of the town, 
and the proximity to a fine bathing beach. As a 
usual thing, if one mentions Tengchow to any of the 
old missionaries, the remark is apt promptly to 
follow: ''Delightful place! I spent a summer there 



THE NEW HOME 85 

once with Dr. Mateer." Pleasant as he made his 
own home to his Httle friends, and to veterans and 
recruits, he was equally agreeable in the homes of 
others who could enter into his spheres of thought 
and activity. He was often a guest in the house of 
Dr. Fitch and his wife at Shanghai, while putting his 
books through the press. He was resident for months 
in the China Inland Mission Sanitarium, and in the 
Mission Home at Chefoo. Dr. Fitch and his wife, 
and Superintendent Stooke of the Flome, tell v/ith 
evident delight of his ^' table talk," and of other 
ways by which he won their esteem and affection. 

When the summer guests were flown from Teng- 
chow, the missionaries were usually the entire foreign 
community, — a condition of things bringing both 
advantages and disadvantages as to their work. On 
the one hand, the cause which they represented was 
not prejudiced by the bad Hves of certain foreigners 
coming for commercial or other secular purposes from 
Christian lands. On the other hand, they were left 
mthout things that would have ministered immensely 
to their convenience and comfort, and which they 
often sadly needed for their own efhciency, and for 
their health and even for their Hves. This was 
largely due to the tedious and difficult means of com- 
munication with the outside world. For instance, 
it was six weeks until the goods which the Mateers 
left behind them at Chefoo were delivered to them 
at Tengchow. Letters had to be carried back and 
forth between Tengchow and Chefoo, the distributing 



86 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

point, by means of a private courier. When, by and 
by, the entire band joined together and hired a carrier 
to bring the mail once a week, this seemed a tre- 
mendous advance. The cost of a letter to the United 
States was forty-five cents. 

But the most serious of all their wants was com- 
petent medical attention. How Mateer wrote home, 
and begged and planned, and sometimes almost 
scolded, about sending a physician to reinforce their 
ranks! In the meantime they used domestic remedies 
for their own sick, or sent them overland to Chefoo, 
or in case of dire necessity brought up a physician 
from that city. Mateer soon found himself com- 
pelled to attempt what he could medically and 
surgically for himself and wife, and also for others, 
and among these the poor native sufferers. One of 
his early cases was a terribly burnt child whom he 
succeeded in curing; and another was a sufferer from 
lockjaw, who died in spite of all he could do; and 
still another case was of a woman with a broken leg. 
He tried his hand at puUing a tooth for his associate, 
Mr. Mills, but he had to abandon the effort, laying 
the blame on the miserable forceps with which he had 
to operate. Later he could have done a better job, 
for he provided himself with a complete set of dental 
tools, not only for pulling teeth and for filling them, 
but also for making artificial sets. All of these he 
often used. On his first furlough he attended medical 
lectures at Philadelphia and did a good deal of dissec- 
tion. A closet in the new house held a stock of 



THE NEW HOME 87 

medicines, and by administering them he reheved 
much suffering, and saved many Hves, especially in 
epidemics of cholera. The physicians who, in re- 
sponse to the appeals of the missionaries, were first 
sent to the station at Tengchow did not remain long; 
and for many years the most of the medicine admin- 
istered came out of the same dark closet imder the 
stairs of "the New Home.'' 



VI 

HIS INNER LIFE 

"I am very conscious that we here are not up to the standard 
that we ought to be, and this is our sin. We pray continually for 
a baptism from on high on the heathen round us; but we need 
the same for ourselves that we may acquit ourselves as becomes 
our profession. Our circumstances are not favorable to growth 
either in grace or in mental culture. Our only associates are 
the native Christians, whose piety is often of a low type; it 
receives from us, but imparts nothing to us. Mentally we are 
left wholly without the healthy stimulus and the friction of 
various and superior minds which surround men at home. 
Most whom we meet here are mentally greatly our inferiors, 
and there is no pubHc opinion that will operate as a potent 
stimulus to our exertions. It may be said that these are 
motives of a low kind. It may be so; but their all-powerful 
influence on all Hterary men at home is scarcely known or felt 
till the absence of them shows the difference." — letter to 

THE society of INQUIRY, IN THE WESTERN THEOLOGICAL 

SEMINARY, October I, 1867. 

WE have now reached a stage in this narration 
where the order of time can no longer be 
followed, except in a very irregular manner. 
We must take up distinct phases of Mateer's life and 
work, as separate topics, and so far as practicable 
consider each by itself. This is not at all because in 
him there was any lack of singleness of aim or of per- 
sistence. This man, from the time when he began his 
labors in China until he finished his course, without 
interruption, put his strength and personality into the 

88 



HIS INNER LIFE 89 

evangelization of the people of that great empire. But 
in doing this he found it necessary to follow along 
various lines, often contemporaneously, though never 
out of sight of any one of them. For our purpose 
it is best that to some extent they should be con- 
sidered separately. 

But before we proceed further it appears desirable 
to seek an acquaintance with his inner Ufe. By this 
I do not mean his native abihties, or his outward 
characteristics as these were known and read by all 
men who came much into contact with him. It is 
from the soul Hfe, and especially the religious side 
of it, that it seems desirable to lift the veil a Uttle. 
This in the case of anyone is a delicate task, and 
ought to be performed with a good deal of reserve. 
In the instance now in hand there is special difficulty. 
Mateer never, either in speech or in writing, was 
accustomed to tell others much about his own inward 
experiences. For a time in his letters and in his 
Journal he occasionally breaks over this reticence a 
Httle; but on November 27, 1876, he made the last 
entry in the Journal; and long before this he had be- 
come so much occupied with his work that he records 
very little concerning his soul life. Still less had he 
to say on that subject in his letters; and as years went 
by, his occupations compelled him to cut off as much 
correspondence as practicable, and to fill such as he 
continued with other matters. Nothing like complete- 
ness consequently is here undertaken or is possible. 

A notion that is current, especially among ''men 



90 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

of the world," is that a missionary is almost always 
a sentimental dreamer who ignores the stern realities 
of life. It has been my work to train a good many of 
those who have given themselves to this form of 
Christian service, and to have a close acquaintance 
with a good many more; and I cannot now recall one 
of whom such a characteristic could be honestly 
affirmed. I have in mind a number of whom almost 
the opposite is true. Certainly if to carry the gospel 
into the dark places of the earth with the conviction 
of its ultimate triumph is to be called dreaming, 
then every genuine missionary is a sentimentahst 
and a dreamer; and Mateer was one of them. But 
in meeting the experiences of life and in doing his work, 
he was about as far removed from just accusation of 
this sort as anyone could be. Indeed, he was such a 
matter-of-fact man that his best friends often wished 
that he were less so, I have carefully gone over many 
thousands of pages of his Journal and of his letters 
and papers, and I recall only one short paragraph that 
savors of sentimentality. It is so exceptional that 
it shall have a place here. In a letter written to a 
friend (Julia, I suspect), in the spring of 1861, he says: 

I have lived in the country nearly all my life, and 
I much prefer its quiet beauty. I love to wander at 
this season over the green fields, and listen to the winds 
roaring through the young leaves, and to sit down in 
the young sunshine of spring under the lee of some 
sheltering bank or moss-covered rock. I love to 
think of the past and the future, and, thus meditating, 
to gather up courage for the stern reahties of life. 



HIS INNER LIFE 91 

This is not very distressingly Wertherian, and 
surely ought not, ever after, to be laid up against the 
young man, the fountain of whose thoughts may at 
that season have been unsealed by love. 

But we sadly miss the truth if we infer that, because 
he was so matter-of-fact in his conduct, he was with- 
out tenderness of heart or depth of feeling. Dr. 
Goodrich in his memorial article in the ^'Chinese Re- 
corder" of January, 1909, says of him: 

I do not remember to have heard him preach, in 
English or Chinese, when his voice did not somewhere 
tremble and break, requiring a few moments for the 
strong man to conquer his emotion and proceed. 
His tenderness was often shown in quiet ways to the 
poor and unfortunate, and he frequently wept when 
some narrative full of pathos and tears was read. The 
second winter after the Boxer year the college students 
learned to sing the simple but beautiful hymn he had 
just translated, ''Some one will enter the Pearly Gate." 
One morning we sang the hymn at prayers. Just as 
we were ending, I looked around to see if he were 
pleased with their singing. The tears were streaming 
down his face. 

This sympathetic tenderness was as much a part 
of his nature as was his rugged strength. . . . He 
dearly loved Kttle children, and easily won their 
affection. Wee babies would stretch out their tiny 
arms to him, and fearlessly pull his beard, to his 
great delight. 

His students both feared him and loved him, and 
they loved him more than they feared him; for, 
while he was the terror of wrongdoers and idlers, 
he was yet their Great-heart, ready to forgive and 



92 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

quick to help. How often have we seen Dr. Mateer's 
students in his study, pouring out their hearts to 
him and receiving loving counsel and a father's 
blessing! He loved his students, and followed them 
constantly as they went out into their Ufe work. 

A lady who was present tells that when the first of 
his ''boys" were ordained to the ministry he was so 
overcome that the tears coursed down his cheeks 
while he charged them to be faithful to their vows. 

His mother's love he repaid with a fihal love that 
must have been to her a source of measureless satis- 
faction. Julia could not reasonably have craved any 
larger measure of affection than she received from him 
as her husband; and later, Ada entered into posses- 
sion of the same rich gift. One of the things that 
touched him most keenly when he went away to 
China was his separation from brothers and sisters, 
toward whom he continued to stretch out his benef- 
icent hand across the seas. 

He was a man who believed in the necessity of 
regeneration by the Holy Spirit in order to begin a 
genuinely Christian life. This is one of those great 
convictions which he never questioned, and which 
strengthened as he increased in age. When he united 
with the church in his nineteenth year, he thereby 
publicly declared that he was sufficiently sure that 
this inward change had passed upon him to warrant 
him in enrolling himself among the avowed followers 
of Christ. But of any sudden outward religious con- 
version he was not conscious, and made no profession. 



HIS INNER LIFE 93 

In the brief autobiographical sketch previously quoted 
he says: 

I had a praying father and mother, and had been 
faithfully taught from my youth. I cannot tell when 
my religious impressions began. They grew up with 
me, but were very much deepened by the faithful 
preachings of Rev. I. N. Hays, pastor of the church 
of Hunterstown, especially in a series of meetings held 
in the winter of 1852-3. 

As to his external moral conduct there was no place 
for a visible ''conversion"; he had no vicious habits 
to abandon, no evil companions from whom to sepa- 
rate himself. It was on the inner Hfe that the trans- 
formation was wrought, but just when or where he 
could not himself tell, — an experience which as to 
this feature has often been duphcated in the children 
of godly households. 

The impression which I formed of him while asso- 
ciated with him in college was that he lived uprightly 
and neglected no duty that he regarded as obligatory 
on him. I knew that he went so far beyond this as 
to be present at some of the religious associations of 
the students, such as the Brainard Society, and a 
little circle for prayer; and that he walked a couple 
of miles into the country on Sabbath morning to 
teach a Bible class in the Chartiers church. If I 
had been questioned closely I probably would have 
made a mistake, not unlike that into which in later 
years those who did not penetrate beneath the surface 
of his Hfe may easily have fallen. I would have said 



94 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

that the chief lack in his piety was as to the amount of 
feehng that entered into it. I would have said that 
he was an honest, upright Christian; but that he 
needed to have the depths of his soul stirred by the 
forces of religion in order that he might become what 
he was capable of, for himself and for others. Pos- 
sibly such an expression concerning him at that time 
of hfe might not have been wholly without warrant; 
but in later years it certainly would have been a gross 
misjudgment, and while I was associated with him 
in college and seminary it was far less justified than 
I imagined. 

On October 13, 1856, he began the Journal which, 
with interruptions, he continued for twenty years. 
In the very first entry he gives his reasons for keeping 
this record, one of which he thus states: 

I will also to some extent record my own thoughts 
and feehngs; so that in after years I can look back and 
see the history of my own Hfe and the motives which 
impelled me in whatever I did, — the dark and the 
bright spots, for it is really the state of one's mind 
that determines one's depressions or enjoyments. 

He records distinctly that the Journal was written 
for his own eye alone. One in reading it is surprised 
at the freedom with which occasionally he passes 
judgment, favorable and unfavorable, on people who 
meet him on his way. Concerning himself also he is 
equally candid. Most that he has to say of himself 
relates to his outward activities, but sometimes he 
draws aside the veil and reveals the inmost secrets 



HIS INNER LIFE 95 

of his soul and of his religious life. As a result we 
discover that it was by no means so calm as we might 
suppose from looking only at the surface. In this self- 
revelation there is not a line that would be improper 
to publish to the world. A few selections are all that 
can be given here. A certain Saturday preceding the 
administration of the Lord's Supper was kept by him- 
self and other college students as a fast day, and after 
mentioning an address to which he had listened, and 
which strongly appealed to him, he goes on to say: 

I know that I have not been as faithful as I should. 
Though comparatively a child in my Christian life, 
as it is Httle more than a year since I was admitted 
to the church, yet I have come to the table of the Lord 
with my faith obscured, my heart cold and lifeless, 
without proper seK-examination and prayer to God 
for the hght of his countenance. I have spent this 
evening in looking at my past Hfe and conversation, 
and in prayer to God for pardon and grace to help. 
My past life appears more sinful than it has ever 
done. My conduct as a Christian, indeed, in many 
things has been inconsistent. Sin has often triumphed 
over me and led me captive at its mil. I have laid 
my case before God, and asked him to humble me, 
and prepare me to meet my Sa\dour aright. O 
that God would meet me at this time, and show me 
the Hght of his countenance, and give me grace and 
strength; that for the time to come I might lay aside 
every weight and the sins that do so easily beset me, 
and run with patience the race that is set before me! 
There seems to be some unusual interest manifested 
by some just now; so that I am not without hope 
that God will bless us and perhaps do a glorious 



96 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

work among us. Many prayers have this day as- 
cended to God for a blessing, and if we are now left 
to mourn the hidings of God's face, it will be because 
of our sins and our unbelief. I have endeavored to 
keep this as a true fast day; yet my heart tells me 
that I have not kept it as I should. Sin has been 
mingled even in my devotions. Yet I am not with- 
out hope, because there is One whose righteousness 
is all-perfect, whose intercessions are all-prevalent. 
Blessed be God for his unspeakable gift. 

The next day, however, among other things, he 
wrote: 

I think that I have never enjoyed a communion 
season so much. . . . This day my hopes of 
heaven have been strengthened, and my faith has been 
increased; and if I know my own heart, (0 that I 
knew it better!), I have made a more unreserved 
consecration of myself to God than I have ever done 
before; and may he grant me grace to Hve more to 
his glory ! 

Surely, the young man who thus opens to our view 
the secrets of his inner religious life was not lacking 
seriously in depth of feeling. One is reminded of the 
Psalmist's hart panting after the water brooks. 

In the seminary he still had seasons of troubled 
heart-searching and unsatisfied longings for a better 
Christian hfe. After reading a part of a book called 
"The Crucible," he says: 

I have not enjoyed this Sabbath as I should. My 
own heart is not right, I fear. I am too far from 
Christ. I am overcome by temptation so often, and 



HIS INNER LIFE 97 

then my peace is destroyed, and my access to a throne 
of grace is hindered. I am ready to exclaim with 
Paul, " Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall dehver 
me from this body of death!" Would to God I could 
also say with the assurance he did: "I thank God, 
through our Lord Jesus Christ." 

At the same time there is evidence that he was 
advancing toward a higher stage of rehgious ex- 
perience, and that he was leaving behind him the ele- 
ments of repentance and faith, and going on toward 
''perfection." He reads the Life of Richard Williams, 
the Patagonian missionary, and then sits down and 
writes: 

He was a wonderful man; had a wonderful life. 
His faith transcends anything I have ever had. His 
communion with God was constant and joyous, at 
times rising to such a pitch that, in his own words, 
''he almost imagined himself in heaven." His 
resignation to God's will and consecration to his 
ser\dce were complete in the highest. In his hfe and 
in his death is displayed in a marvelous manner the 
power of God's grace. Reduced almost to the cer- 
tainty of death by scurvy, in a Httle, uncomfortable 
barge or float, with scarce any provisions, far from all 
human help, in the midst of storms and cold, this de- 
voted man reads God's Word, prays to him from his 
lowly couch, and dehberately declares that he would 
not exchange places with any man hving! What 
godlike faith! What a subhme height to reach in 
Christian Hfe in this world ! I am more and more con- 
vinced that our enjoyment of God and sweet sense of 
the presence of Christ as well as our success in glori- 
iying God depends entirely on the measure of our 



98 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

consecration to him, our complete submission of our 
wills to his. My prayer is for grace thus to conse- 
crate and submit myself to his will. Then I shall be 
happy. 

I do not think that Mateer had any disposition to 
follow in the footsteps of Williams by tempting 
Providence through doubtful exposure of his life 
and health to danger; it was the consecration to the 
service of God that he coveted. He seems about 
this time to have made a distinct advance in the direc- 
tion of an increasing desire to give himself up wholly 
to the service of his divine Master, and to submit 
himself entirely to the will of God. A most severe 
test of this came to him in the questions of his duty 
as to foreign missions. First, it was whether he ought 
to go on this errand, and whether he was willing. 
Nor was it an easy thing for him to respond affirma- 
tively. He was a strong man, and conscious of his 
strength. For him to go to the unevangelized in some 
distant part of the world was to put aside almost every 
"fond ambition" that had hitherto attracted him in 
his plans for life. Opportunities to do good were 
abundantly open to him in this country. Tender 
ties bound his heart to relatives and friends, and the 
thought of leaving them with little prospect of meet- 
ing them again in this world was full of pain. To 
go as a missionary was a far more severe ordeal fifty 
years ago than it is in most cases to-day. Bravely 
and thoroughly, however, he met the issue. Divine 
grace was sufficient for him. He offered himself 



HIS INNER LIFE 99 

to the Board and was accepted. Then followed 
another test of his consecration just as severe. For 
a year and a half he had to wait before he ascertained 
that after all he was to be sent. There were times 
when his going seemed to be hopeless; and he had to 
learn to bow in submission to what seemed the divine 
will, though it almost broke his heart. When, late 
in 1862, one of the secretaries told him that unless 
a way soon opened he had better seek a permanent 
field at home, he says in his Journal : 

It seems as if I cannot give it up. I had such strong 
faith that I should yet go. ... I had a struggle 
to make up my mind, and now I cannot undo all that 
work as one might suppose. What is it? Why is it, 
that my most loved and cherished plan should be 
frustrated? God will do right, however; this I know. 
Help me, gracious God, to submit cheerfully to all 
thy blessed will; and if I never see heathen soil, 
keep within me at home the glorious spirit of missions. 

It was a severe school of discipline to which he was 
thus sent, but he learned his lesson well. 

One cannot think it at all strange that under the 
conditions of the outward voyage he suffered at 
times from spiritual depression. November 19, 1863, 
he made this entry in his Journal: 

Spent the forenoon in prayer and in reading God's 
Word, in view of my spiritual state. I have felt 
oppressed with doubts and fears for some time, so 
that I could not enjoy myself in spiritual exercises 
as I should. I have had a flood of anxious thoughts 



100 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

about my own condition and my unfitness for the 
missionary work. I began the day very much cast 
down; but, blessed be God, I found peace and joy 
and assurance in Christ. In prayer those expressions 
in the 86th Psalm, ''ready to forgive," and ''plenteous 
in mercy," were brought home to my heart in power. 
I trust I did and do gladly cast myself renewedly on 
Jesus, my Saviour. Just before dinner time I went 
out on deck to walk and meditate. Presently my 
attention was attracted by Georgie (Mrs. B's little 
girl) singing in her childish manner the words of the 
hymn, "He will give you grace to conquer." Over 
and over again she said it as if singing to herself. 
They were words in season. My heart caught the 
sound gladly, and also repeated it over again and 
again, "He will give you grace to conquer." I 
thought of the parallel Scripture, "My grace is 
sufficient for thee." The Spirit of God was in those 
words, and they were precious. My fears were all 
gone. I was ready to go, in the strength of this word, 
to China, and undertake any work God should appoint. 
I went to my room, and with a full heart thanked God 
for this consolation. Out of the mouth of babes thou 
hast ordained strength. I am glad that I gave this 
season to special seeking of God; it has done me good. 
Lord, make the influence of it to be felt. I had 
much wandering of mind at first, but God mercifully 
delivered me from this. O, that I could maintain 
habitually a devotional spirit, and live very near to 
the blessed Jesus ! 

Though he but dimly understood it then, the Lord 
was in the school of experience disciplining him in 
qualities which in all his subsequent work he needed 
to put into exercise: to rest on the promises of God 



HIS INNER LIFE 101 

in darkness, to wait patiently under delays that are 
disappointing, and to endure in the spirit of Christ 
the contradictions of the very sinners for whose 
higher welfare he was willing to make any sacrifice, 
however costly to himself. 

On his field of labor he was too busy with his duties 
as a missionary to write down much in regard to his 
own inner fife. Nor is there any reason to regard this 
as a thing greatly to be regretted. The fact is that 
during the decade which extended from his admission 
to membership in the church to his entrance on his 
work in China, he matured in his religious experience 
to such a degree that subsequently, though there 
was increasing strength, there were no very striking 
changes on this side of his character. In the past he 
had set before himself, as a mark to be attained, the 
thorough consecration of himself to the service of 
God, and it was largely because by introspection he 
recognized how far he fell short of this that he some- 
times had been so much troubled about his own 
spiritual condition. Henceforth this consecration, as 
something already attained, was constantly put into 
practice. He perhaps searched himself less in regard 
to it; he did his best to live it. 

In connection with this, two characteristics of his 
inner fife are so evident as to demand special notice. 
One of these was his convictions as to religious truth. 
He beHeved that the Scriptures of the Old and New 
Testament are the Word of God, and he was so 
sure that this is radically essential in the faith of a 



102 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

missionary that he was not ready to welcome any recruit 
who was adrift on this subject. He beHeved also with 
like firmness in the other great evangeHcal doctrines 
set forth in the symbols and theologies of the orthodox 
churches. His own creed was Calvinistic and Pres- 
byterian; yet he was no narrow sectarian. He was 
eager to cooperate with the missionaries of other 
denominations than his own; all that he asked was 
that they firmly hold to what he conceived to be the 
essentials of Christianity. Because he believed them 
so strongly, these also were the truths which he 
continually labored to bring home to the people. In 
a memorial published by Dr. Corbett concerning 
him, he says: 

Nearly thirty years ago I asked an earnest young 
man who applied for baptism, when he first became 
interested in the truth. He replied: ^' Since the day I 
heard Dr. Mateer preach at the market near my home, 
on the great judgment, when everyone must give an 
account to God. His sermon made such an impression 
on my mind that I had no peace until I learned to 
trust in Jesus as my Saviour." An able Chinese 
preacher, who was with me in the interior, when the 
news of Dr. Mateer's death reached us, remarked, 
^'I shall never forget the wonderful sermon Dr. 
Mateer preached a few weeks ago in the Chinese 
church at Chefoo, on conscience." This was the 
last sermon he was permitted to preach. Salvation 
through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, man's sinful- 
ness and need of immediate repentance, and faith, and 
the duty of every Christian to live a holy Hfe and 
constantly bear witness for Jesus, were the great 



HIS INNER LIFE 103 

truths he always emphasized. He died in the faith 
of the blessed gospel he so ably preached for nearly 
half a century. 

Hand in hand with these great convictions went 
an absolute loyalty to duty. To this he subordinated 
everything else. The reason why he toiled with his 
own hands, on buildings, on machinery, on apparatus, 
was not because he would rather do this than preach 
Christ, but because he was convinced that the situa- 
tion was such that he could not with a good conscience 
refuse to perform that labor. It was not his prefer- 
ence to give long years to the making of the Mandarin 
version of the Scriptures; he did it because plainly it 
was his duty to engage in this wearisome task. He 
fought with his pen his long battle for Shen as the 
word to be used in Chinese as the name of God; and 
even when left in a commonly conceded minority, 
still refused to yield, only because he believed that in 
so doing he was standing up for something that was 
not only true but of vital importance to Christianity 
in China. His unwillingness under protracted pres- 
sure to introduce English into the curriculum of the 
Tengchow school and college, the heartbreak with 
which he saw the changes made in the institution after 
its removal to Wei Hsien, were all due not to obsti- 
nancy but to convictions of duty as he saw it. 

A man of this sort, — strong in intellect, firm of will, 
absolutely loyal to what he conceives to be his duty, — 
travels a road with serious perils along its line. A loss 
of balance may make of him a bigot or a dangerous 



104 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

fanatic. Even Dr. Mateer had "the defects of his 
qualities." He did not always make sufficient 
allowance for persons who could not see things just 
as he did. He sometimes unwarrantably questioned 
the rectitude of others' conduct when it did not com- 
form to his own conception of what they ought to 
have done. But these defects were not serious enough 
greatly to mar his usefulness or to spoil the beauty 
of his character. His wisdom as a rule, his rectitude, 
his entire consecration to the service of God in the 
work of missions, his wealth of heart, after all, were 
so imquestionable that any wounds he inflicted soon 
healed; and he was in an exceptional degree esteemed 
and revered by all who came into close touch with 
him. 

Was Dr. Mateer a very ''spiritually-minded man"? 
It is not strange that this question was raised, though 
rarely, by some one who saw only the outside of his Hf e, 
and this at his sterner moments. He even did much 
of his private praying when he was walking up and 
down in his room, or taking recreation out on the city 
wall, and when no one but wife or sister knew what 
he was doing. One had to be admitted to the inner 
shrine of his heart to appreciate the fervor of his piety. 



VII 
DOING THE WORK OF AN EVANGELIST 

"I have traveled in mule litters, on donkeys, and on foot 
over a large part of the province of Shantung, preaching from 
village to village, on the streets, and by the wayside. Over 
the nearer portions I have gone again and again. My preach- 
ing tours would aggregate from twelve thousand to fifteen 
thousand miles, including from eight thousand to twelve 
thousand addresses to the heathen." — ^autobiographical 

SKETCH, 1897. 

THE first thing which Mateer set himself to do, 
after he arrived at Tengchow, was to acquire 
the language of the people. The difficulties 
which the Chinese tongue presents to the foreigner are 
too well known to need recital here, nor was it easier to 
Mateer than to other persons possessed of good ability 
and thorough education. In January, 1902, at the 
request of Secretary Speer, he prepared for the use of 
the Board of Missions a paper on the subject of 
"Missionaries and the Language." In it he does not 
profess to be teUing his own experience, and yet it is 
largely an exhibit of what he had himself done. In 
the introductory paragraph he says : 

One of the tasks, and to many one of the trials, of 
missionary Kfe, is the learning of a new, and often a 
difficult language. So far as the message of the gospel 
is concerned, the tongue is tied until the language is 
learned. I set it down as a first principle, that every 

105 



106 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

missionary should go out with a distinct and fixed 
determination to learn the language and to learn it 
well. Let there be no shrinking from it, no half 
measures with it. Laxity of this purpose in this 
matter is unworthy of anyone who is called to be a 
missionary. When I hear a young missionary, after a 
few weeks or months on the field, saying, "I hate this 
language; who can learn such outlandish gibberish as 
this?" my opinion of his fitness for the work at once 
suffers a heavy discount. Every young missionary 
should consider it his or her special business to fall in 
love with the language as quickly as possible. 

Then he proceeds to lay down certain general 
principles and thoroughly to elaborate them; insisting 
that everyone can learn the tongue of a people, not 
merely well enough to make some sort of stagger at 
the. use of it, but thoroughly; and giving directions 
as to the best method of accomplishing this result. 
At the same time he recognizes the fact that by no 
means all missionaries are able to acquire the language 
so perfectly that they are competent to contribute to 
the permanent Christian literature of the country. 

In his case there were exceptional difficulties as to 
this preliminary work. Printed helps were few and not 
very good. Competent native teachers were almost 
impossible to obtain at Tengchow, and were liable at 
any time to abandon their work. Besides, so long as 
the Mateers were hampered by their narrow quarters, 
along with other missionaries, in the old temple, and 
while he was compelled to give almost the whole of his 
strength to the repairs and construction of buildings, 



WORK OF AN EVANGELIST 107 

for him to accomplish what he otherwise might have 
done in this line was impossible. Under date of 
December 24, 1864, almost a year after his arrival 
at Tengchow, he wrote in his Journal: 

I have been studying pretty regularly this week, yet 
to look back over it, I cannot see that I have ac- 
compHshed much. Learning Chinese is slow work. 
I do not wonder that the Chinese have never made 
great advances in learning. It is such a herculean 
task to get the language that a man's best energies are 
gone by the time he has himself prepared to work. It 
is as if a mechanic should spend half his hfe, or more, 
in getting his tools ready. Before I came to China 
I feared that I would have trouble acquiring the 
language, and I find my fears were weU grounded. 

This confession is very notable, coming as it does 
from the pen of him who subsequently, as one of his 
associates said after his death, "became not only the 
prince of Mandarin speakers among foreigners in 
China, but also so grasped the principles of the 
language as to enable him in future years to issue 
the most thoroughgoing and complete work on the 
language, the most generally used text-book for all 
students of the spoken tongue"; and it may be added, 
who was selected by the missionaries of all China, in 
conference, to be chairman of the committee to revise 
the Mandarin version of the Scriptures, and who in 
aU that work was easily the chief. The diligence 
with which he improved every spare moment in the 
study of the language is shown by a letter of Mrs. 



108 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

JuKa Mateer, in which she writes of reading aloud 
to her husband in the evening while he practiced writ- 
ing Chinese characters. 

Really he was making better progress than probably 
he himself imagined. On January 14, 1865, he began 
to go regularly into the school, to teach the children 
a phonetic method of writing the Chinese characters. 
He records that on February 7 he took charge of 
the morning prayers, and adds: 

It seemed very strange indeed to me to pray in 
Chinese, and no less awkward than strange. I found, 
however, less embarrassment in doing it than I at first 
supposed. I might easily have begun some time ago, 
but our school-teacher performs the duty very accept- 
ably, and so I left the matter to him until I was fully 
prepared. I trust that it will not be long till I will 
be at home in using Chinese. 

Tengchow is the seat of one of the Competitive 
literary examinations for students, and at the season 
when these are held thousands of candidates present 
themselves. Under date of March 11, of that year, 

he says: 

A goodly number of the scholars have come to see 
me, to get books and to hear ''the doctrine." I have 
had opportunity to do considerable preaching, which 
I have not failed to embrace. Some of them under- 
stood me quite well. I find a great difference between 
talking to them and to the illiterate people. They 
understand me a great deal better. Most of them 
listen with attention, and some of them with evident 



WORK OF AN EVANGELIST 109 

interest. They all treated me with respect. I gave 
them books; they promising to read them, and to 
come again at the next examination. 

These occasions continued to offer like opportunity 
in succeeding years, and he took all the advantage of 
it that he could. Only rarely did students give him 
any cause for annoyance. On May 22 he went to a 
fair that was held just outside one of the gates, and 
tried his hand at preaching to that miscellaneous 
audience in the open air. In the forenoon he talked 
himself tired, and returned in the afternoon to repeat 
the effort, but ^dth what effect he could not teU. 
Rain came on and he had to stop. He added in his 
Journal, ''Oh, how I '^dsh that I could use Chinese as 
I can EngKsh, — then I could preach v^dth some com- 
fort!" On Sabbath, June 19, he preached his first 
sermon before the Kttle Chinese church organized 
at Tengchow. The notice he had was short, Mills 
ha\TQg been taken ill, and sending him word that he 
must fill the pulpit. He says: ''I could not prepare 
a sermon, and translate it carefully and accurately. 
I had just to get ready some phrases, and statements 
of the main points, and depend on my Chinese for the 
rest. I got on better than I expected I should, though 
to me at least it seemed poor enough." We need not 
follow the process of his acquisition of the language any 
further, except to say that he never ceased to study it, 
and to seek to improve in it, although he came by 
and by to be able to use it, in both speaking and writ- 
ing, so well that the Chinese often took more pleasure 



110 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

in hearing and reading his productions than if he had 
been a native. 

As the senior missionary, Mills had charge of the 
church organized at Tengchow, and any preaching 
that Mateer did in it was occasional. It was not 
long before a movement was organized for evangelistic 
work on the streets, and he gladly took part in that 
method of work. He was anxious also to obtain a 
room which he could use as a chapel. His first efforts 
to secure such a building were rendered futile on 
account of the intense opposition of the people, and 
the disincHnation, or worse, of the officials to enforce 
his legal rights in this matter, under the treaty. It 
was not until the middle of April, 1867, that he suc- 
ceeded in opening a room where he and his Chinese 
assistant could have a regular place for preaching and 
selHng books. It stood on a principal street, and 
was, therefore, as to location, well suited for the work 
to which it was set apart. The opening of it was the 
occasion for the gathering of a crowd of rowdies who 
threw stones at the doors, and otherwise created dis- 
turbance; but prompt arrest of the ringleader and 
the haling of him before a magistrate brought the 
rowdyism to a close. Of course, the school afforded 
another local opportunity for evangelization, and it 
was from the very first effectually employed. 

Tengchow itself was not very responsive to the 
gospel. The demand for books was soon satisfied 
to such an extent that sales became small. The 
novelty of street preaching and of the chapel services 



WORK OF AN EVANGELIST 111 

gradually was exhausted. The little church did not 
attract many on the Sabbath, except the regular 
attendants. True, a city of so many inhabitants 
might seem — notwithstanding such limitations as ex- 
isted — a sufficient field for all the labor that could be 
put upon it by the little band of missionaries located 
there. But beyond the walls was all the rest of the 
province of Shantung, with none to evangelize it save 
the missionaries at Chefoo and Tengchow. That 
province is in area about one-third larger than the 
State of Pennsylvania; and it now has somewhere in 
the neighborhood of thirty millions of inhabitants, 
mostly scattered in innumerable villages, though 
frequently also concentrated in cities. The climate 
is about that of Kentucky, and the productions of 
the soil are not very different. Part of the surface 
of the country is hilly and some of it rises into moun- 
tains of moderate height; but most of it is level or 
sKghtly rolling. Writing to one of the secretaries of 
the Board, under date of May lo, 1869, Mateer thus 
expressed himself as to the strategic importance of 
Shantung in the tremendous enterprise of evangeKzing 
China : 

I think it is almost universally admitted that Tsinan 
fu [the capital, situated about three hundred miles 
southwest of Tengchow] offers the most promising 
field for missionary effort in China. The region in 
which this city lies is the religious center of China. 
Here both the great sages of China, Confucius and 
Mencius, were born. At Tai An, a short way to the 



112 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

south, the great religious festival of China is held, and 
there are unmistakable evidences that there is a re- 
ligious element in the people of this province found 
nowhere else in China. I feel like saying with all my 
might, Let the Presbyterian Church strike for this 
province. It has given both religion and government 
to China in the ages that are past, and it is going to 
give Christianity to China in the future. 

These pioneer missionaries in Shantung as promptly 
as possible sought, first by itineration, and later by 
opening new stations, to carry the gospel far and wide 
over the province. In this they labored under one 
serious inconvenience from which their brethren in 
much of south China are exempt. Down there it is 
easy to travel extensively on the rivers and the 
numerous canals. In Shantung the one great river 
is the Hoang, or Yellow, running from the west toward 
the east; and the one important canal is the Grand, 
running north and south; and both of these are so 
far remote from Chefoo and Tengchow that in the 
itineration of the missionaries from these places they 
were of little use. As a ' consequence they had to 
adopt the other methods of travel customary in that 
region. Even to-day, though a railway runs from 
the coast at Kiaochou, across Shantung to Tsinan fu, 
and another across the west end of the province and 
passing through Tsinan fu is almost completed, much 
of the territory is no more accessible than half a 
century ago. The traveler can hire a mule, or more 
probably a donkey, and — throwing his bedding across 



WORK OF AN EVANGELIST 113 

the packsaddle — make his way, with the owner of 
the animal running along as driver, to the place where, 
if he proceeds farther, he must hire a second mule or 
donkey; and so on to the end of his journey. One 
can also travel by wheelbarrow. These conveyances 
are considered to be quite genteel, and are much 
patronized by Chinese women. The wheels are big 
and clumsy, and, being innocent of oil, creak fearfully, 
and as the wheelbarrows are without springs the 
passenger is jolted excruciatingly. They are propelled 
by a man pushing by the handles, and often with the 
aid of another, and sometimes a donkey in front, and 
it may be with a sail to catch the wind. In the hilly 
regions the shentza, or mule litter, is common. In 
describing this conveyance Mateer said in one of his 
Sunday-school letters: 

The motion is various and pecuKar. Sometimes 
the mules step together, and sometimes they don't. 
Now you have a plunging motion like the shaking of 
a pepper box, then comes a waving motion like the 
shaking of a sieve; and then a rolling motion like the 
rocking of a cradle, and then by turns these various 
motions mix up and modify each other in endless 
variety. I have often thought that if a man had a stiff 
joint, one of these shentzas would be a good thing to 
shake it loose. You are completely at the mercy of 
these two mules. If you are sitting up you think that 
you would be more comfortable lying down, and if you 
are lying down you think that you would be more 
comfortable sitting up. There is no relief from inces- 
sant shaking but to get out and walk. 
8 



114 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

The most genteel mode of travel is a two-wheeled 
cart, provided always that the track called a road is 
wide and level enough to permit it to be used. I fall 
back on the Sunday-school letter for a description 
of it: 

A Chinese cart is heavy and cliunsy to the last 
degree. It has no springs, no seat, no cushions, and 
is only wide enough for one to sit in it. The only way 
to keep your arms and head from being broken by 
the top, is to wedge yourself in with quilts and pillows. 
Passenger carts are usually drawn by two mules, one 
in the shafts and the other directly in front, hitched 
by two long ropes to the axle — one passing on each 
side of the shaft mule. The driver either walks, or 
rides on the back part of the shafts. ... I took 
one ride in one of these big carts, which I shall re- 
member while I live. We had all gone to a country 
station, one hundred and twenty miles from Tengchow, 
to a meeting of Presbytery. After Presbytery we 
wished to go on to another station forty miles distant. 
There had been a great rain, and the ground was soft, 
and we could get no conveyance. At length we got 
a big cart to carry our luggage and Dr. Mills and 
myself. For it they rigged up a top made of sticks 
and pieces of matting. The team consisted of a mule, 
a horse, and two oxen, with two drivers. Mrs. 
Mateer had a donkey to ride, and Mrs. Capp had a 
sedan chair. Dr. Mills and myself took turns in 
walking with the native elder and assistant. When 
we got all our effects, bedding, cooking utensils and 
so forth, in the cart there was only room for one to sit, 
and the other had to lie down. The first day we 
dragged through the soft earth fifteen miles, but in 
order to do it we had to travel an hour after night. It 



WORK OF AX EVANGELIST 115 

was pitch dark and we had no lantern. We came 
ver\' near losing our way. and finally had no small 
trouble in reaching an inn, and when we did reach it 
what a fuss there was before we got stowed in and got 
our suppers ! We obtained a small room for the ladies. 
but Dr. Mills and I did not fare so well. We had to 
sleep on the ground in a sort of shed which had no 
doors. The next day we got an early start, and found 
the roads a Kttle better, and managed to make the 
other twenty-five miles. During the day we crossed 
a sandy river which was swollen by the rains, and 
there was some danger that we might stick fast in 
the sand. The native assistant crowded into the 
cart. The elder put one foot on the end of the axle. 
which in a Chinese cart projects several inches beyond 
the hub, and supported h im self by holding on to the 
side of the cart. The second driver perched himself 
in the same way on the other end of the axle. The 
chief driver stood erect on the shafts, astride of the 
shaft mule. He floimshed his whip with one hand 
and gesticulated with the other, and both drivers 
hurrahed at the top of their voices. The team got 
excited, and vdth heads and tails erect. — Y-^ith a 
splash and a dash, — we went safely through. 

There is one other mode of travel, and perhaps 
then still the most common of all. even with mission- 
aries when itinerating, and that is to walk. WTien the 
traveler on foot comes to a river if he has long patience 
he may be ferried across; but if the stream is not very 
deep he may have to wade. ]\Iateer. however, had 
a good strong physique and simple tastes, and was 
entirely free from any disposition to fret over small 
annoyances. In those earlier itinerating days he 



116 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

cheerfully took his full share in roughing it with other 
missionaries out in the province. He repeatedly took 
trips when all the provision he made for eating was a 
spoon and a saltcellar; the food he ate was such as 
he got at the inns and from place to place. His 
experiences in this line of evangelistic efforts had an 
important influence on his work in the school and 
the college. Certainly it was a great help toward 
that remarkable acquaintance with colloquial Chinese 
which is shown in his literary labors. 

His first trip to the country was made on October 
14, 1864, and therefore before he had learned the 
language sufficiently to enable him to do much mis- 
sionary work. In reality it was just a visit by the 
entire foreign force stationed by both the Baptists 
and Presbyterians at Tengchow out to a Chinese 
Christian residing ten miles away. In a measure, 
however, it was a typical journey. The roads were 
execrably bad, and Mateer and another missionary 
had one mule between them, so that each walked half 
the way. On August 22 of the ensuing year he, 
and Corbett, — who had come up for the purpose, — 
started on a genuine itinerating tour. It was in one 
particular an unfavorable time. A Chinese inn at 
any season is apt to be uncomfortable enough to a 
person who has been accustomed to the conveniences 
and comforts of western civilization. In the Sunday- 
school letter already quoted Mateer said: 

The inns in China are various in size, but similar in 
style. You enter through a wide doorway which is in 



WORK OF AN EVANGELIST 117 

fact the middle of a long, low house fronting on the 
street. On the one side of this door, or passageway, is 
the kitchen, which is usually furnished with one or 
two kettles, a large water jar, and a few dishes, with 
a meat-chopper and chopping block. Usually there 
is a Httle room partitioned off at the far end, which 
serves for ofhce and storeroom. On the other side is 
a wide, raised platform about two feet high, made of 
mud brick. It answers for the muleteers and humbler 
guests, to sleep on. Inside of this front building is a 
court or yard with a long shed at one or both sides, 
and troughs for feeding mules and donkeys. At the 
further end of this court, and sometimes at one side, 
are rooms for guests. These rooms contain no furni- 
ture but a table and a bench or two, and sometimes 
a chair, with a rough board bedstead, or a raised brick 
platform to take the place of a bedstead. No towel, 
soap, or other toilet necessaries are furnished. They 
usually have one washbasin, which is passed round, 
and is used besides for washing the sore backs of mules, 
and for such other necessary uses. There are no 
stoves or other means of warming the rooms. Some- 
times they build a fire of straw under those brick 
bedsteads, which invariably fills the room with smoke. 
Or, you can order a pan of charcoal, which will fill 
the room v/ith gas. The houses are all one story and 
have no ceiling. The rafters are smoked as black as 
ink, and are always festooned with cobwebs. The 
rooms never have wooden floors. In the more styKsh 
inns the floors are paved with brick, but in ordinary 
inns the floors are simply the ground. In the summer 
fleas and mosquitoes are superabundant, and they 
attack all comers without respect of persons. Every 
night there is in the courtyard a musical concert 
which continues at intervals till morning, and is free 



118 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

to all the guests. The tune is carried by the mules 
and donkeys, and the scolding and swearing of the 
muleteers make up the accompaniment. Voices of 
great excellence are often heard in America, but for 
real pathos and soul-stirring effect there is nothing like 
a dozen or two Chinese donkeys, when they strike in 
together and vie with each other for the preeminence. 
No common table is set, but meals are prepared to 
order and served to guests in their rooms. They 
are generally charged for by the dish. 

Unfortunately Mateer and Corbett had selected 
for their first itineration a time of year when the 
mosquitoes and fleas and other vermin are at their 
worst, and they suffered accordingly. 

They were gone just four weeks; and during that 
period they traveled two hundred and twenty-five 
miles. Much of the time it rained. At Laichow fu 
for this cause they were detained a week; and they 
had to lodge in a room whose roof leaked so badly 
that they had to protect themselves with oilcloths 
and umbrellas. The water was three feet deep on 
the floor. One day they crossed twenty-two streams, 
none of them large, and yet often of such a character 
as to render passage very troublesome. For a while 
they had a shentza borne by a couple of crowbait 
mules, one of which was blind and had the trick of 
suddenly lying down for a rest, and occasionally fell 
flat into a mudhole, or tumbled its rider over a steep 
bank. They met with a variety of treatment from 
the people, but mostly it was not unfavorable to the 
prosecution of their work. Foreigners were still a 



WORK OF AX EVANGELIST 119 

curiosity in the region, and that often attracted a 
crowd to see them, and to ascertain by hearing and 
by reading what might be the nature of the Christian 
doctrine. Once it became necessary for Mateer to 
use force to repel a man who persistently tried to seize 
a book. Each of the missionaries preached about 
forty times, and at all sorts of places. Their largest 
e\^dent success was in disposing of books; these for 
the most part by sale, the total of pages distributed 
amounting to two hundred and seventy-seven thou- 
sand. The details of the tour are given in Mateer's 
Journal. If preserved, they will one day be of extreme 
interest to the Christians of China, as records of the 
ver}' beginnings of the teaching of the gospel in 
Shantimg. 

Again, the next spring Mateer and Corbett. ac- 
companied by Chinese assistants, went on another 
tour of preaching and of book-seUing. Mateer left 
Tengchow on April 5. and reached home on May 19. 
They started with twenty-eight boxes of books, each 
weighing about seventy pounds; and. because they 
had exhausted the supply, they had to turn back before 
reaching the place to which they had originally in- 
tended to go. One of the noteworthy things in their 
itinerar}' is that it brought them for the first time to 
Wei Hsien. now one of the largest of the Presbyte- 
rian mission stations in north China, and the site of 
the College of Arts of the Shantung University; 
and to Tsingchow fu, the site of the Theological 
CoUege. In both towns the Presbyterians and the 



120 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

Baptists are united. All that Mateer said in his 
Journal concerning Wei Hsien is: 

We did not go through the city, except the suburbs. 
The streets were full of people, and they were not 
sparing in their expressions of enmity and contempt. 
W^e saw a great number of elegant memorial arches 
near Wei Hsien and learned that it is a very wealthy 
place. This was indicated by the many elegant 
burying grounds around it, and by the good condition 
of the walls. The country all around, and indeed 
most we passed through to-day, was very rich. A 
man on the road who appeared to know told us that 
one individual, the richest in the city, was worth three 
million taels [then more than as many milKon dollars]. 

Tsingchow fu receives from him a much more 
extended notice. He speaks of the city — although 
very much smaller than evidently it once had been — 
as still large and filled with business. The surrounding 
country wins from him great admiration. Indeed, 
at several places he was much attracted by the pros- 
pect which spread itself out before his eyes; and 
some of it reminded him even of the natural scenery 
of his ''Old Home" in Pennsylvania. Of course, it 
must not be supposed that all the region they tra- 
versed was the equal of this; much of it was far less 
attractive in almost every particular. 

On this journey they had a great variety of experi- 
ences, some of them far enough from pleasant. 
Nearly everywhere they went, curiosity attracted 
crowds of adults and of children. This seems to 
have been especially true in the neighborhood of Wei 



WORK OF AN EVANGELIST 121 

Hsien and Tsingchow fu. At the inns where they 
stopped, privacy was ahnost impossible; the people 
peering in at the windows and bolting into the room 
they occupied. Sometimes they were compelled to 
expel the intruders with a dash of water or with an 
uplifted cane. Harder to bear were the opprobrious 
epithets appKed to them. Mateer said: 

Every village I come to, the term, "devil!" ''devil!" 
comes ringing in my ears. Not that they always 
called it at me, but to one another, to come and see. 
Frequently, however, it was called out most spitefully, 
for me to hear. I think that within the last two days 
I have heard it from at least ten thousand mouths. 
It is strange how such a term could have gotten such 
universal currency. It expresses not so much hatred 
to the gospel as it does the national enmity of the 
Chinese to foreigners. 

Happily at the present time foreigners are seldom 
saluted by this epithet. At Chang Tsau they had 
two serious disturbances. The first was caused by 
some sort of soothsayer, in whom the people had 
much confidence. While Mateer was surrounded by a 
crowd of men to whom he was selling books, in rushed 
this man, brandishing an ugly looking spear; and, 
using the Chinese expression of rage, ''Ah! Ah! I'll kill 
you!" he drove the spear straight at Mateer's breast. 
In those early days of his missionary work Mateer 
carried a revolver for self-defense when going to 
places where he might be attacked, believing that he 
had a moral right to protect himself from assault by 



122 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

evil-minded persons. On this occasion the revolver 
was drawn instantly. As the man came closer 
Mateer seized the spear, and warned the intruder 
of the consequences if he advanced a step farther. 
The risk was too great for the courage of the sooth- 
sayer, and he went away crestfallen, but cursing the 
missionary, threatening to return and kill him, and 
launching his anathemas against anybody who bought 
the books. After the disturbance the people were not 
so eager to buy, and an official tried to induce Mateer 
to cease his efforts, but, partly to show the futihty 
of such interruptions, he continued, until at length 
weariness compelled him to stop. 

The other incident occurred in connection with the 
selHng of books at a market. A man took advantage 
of a moment when the missionary was receiving pay 
from a purchaser, and snatched away a book, but 
Mateer seized and held him until the book was 
restored. This led to an altercation between the 
Chinese assistant and the thief, and blows were struck. 
The disturbance began to spread, and several of the 
crowd seemed disposed to lay hands on Mateer, 
when a significant reference to the revolver brought 
the movement to a prompt termination. In order to 
show the people that the missionaries were doing only 
what is lawful under the treaty, and that they would 
not put up with insult or wrong, they sought satis- 
faction through the official having jurisdiction, and 
warned him that the case would be brought to the 
notice of the American consul at Chefoo. 



WORK OF AN EVANGELIST 123 

There is no record of any itineration again until 
the latter part of February, 1869. That trip was not 
long in duration or very extensive in its territory. 
Julia and her sister Maggie accompanied Dr. Mateer 
and were able to reach large numbers of women with 
the gospel. July 2 1 of the same year he and JuHa went 
on a tour of twelve weeks, their main objective being 
Chow Yuen, where Miao, a zealous young convert, 
was opening a chapel. The story as to him can most 
appropriately be told in another chapter. 

On November 10 of the same year Dr. Mateer and 
JuHa began a journey which lasted twenty-four days, 
during which they traveled about two hundred and 
fifty miles, some of the road being very hilly and rough, 
and the weather cold. Their course was directed to 
certain localities where there were converts, and 
where a beginning had been made by these native 
Christians to give the gospel to their neighbors. One 
of these places was Laichow fu, at which two of these 
had been spreading the light around them, one of them 
having given a commodious chapel, with a guest room 
attached, in which the Mateers lodged. During a 
stay of three days they preached to large numbers; 
and especially on the last day all opposition was swept 
away, and men and women came in crowds. In a 
village in the district of Ping Tu they conducted 
service in a little chapel on the Sabbath. In a letter 
to one of the secretaries of the Board he said: 

The chapel was so crowded that we were barely 
able to have any regular service for the benefit of the 



124 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

native Christians. We had finally to postpone our 
principal service till after night. I baptized five, 
the four who had previously been accepted, and one 
other who, though not very well instructed, was so 
earnest in his profession of faith that we did not feel 
that it would be right to refuse him. After this the 
Lord's Supper was administered. The circumstances 
made it one of the most interesting services of the 
kind I have ever been privileged to conduct. At the 
farthest point at which the gospel has yet got a foot- 
hold, in a house set apart by a native Christian for 
the worship of the true God, the majority of the com- 
pany having never before participated in such a ser- 
vice, the circumstances were altogether such as to 
make the occasion one long to be remembered. 

On February 13, 1873, he and Crossett began a tour 
that lasted about three months and carried them far 
into the interior of Shantung. They traveled in all 
about a thousand miles, and preached and sold books 
in over a hundred cities and towns. Once a man 
threatened Mateer with a manure fork, and once he 
was struck by a stone thrown in a crowd by some 
unknown miscreant. The usual epithet for foreigners 
saluted them; but, on the whole, they escaped 
any serious molestation. On this trip they visited 
Tai An, the great temple, and the sacred mountain, 
and ascended the steps to its summit. For a week 
they remained preaching in the temple to the crowds. 
They also went to the tomb of Confucius, and to the 
magnificent temple dedicated to the sage, in that 
neighborhood. At that date not many foreigners had 



WORK OF AN EVANGELIST 125 

seen these Chinese shrines; but now they have been 
so often described that it would scarcely be justifiable 
to cite the full and interesting record made by Mateer 
in his Journal as to what he saw and did at these 
places. Thence they proceeded as far as the capital, 
Tsinan fu, where Mateer remained for eighteen days, 
while Crossett went on a journey still a couple of 
himdred miles farther to the north and west, in com- 
pany with an agent of the Scottish Bible Society, 
which had been canvassing the province for six or 
eight years. At the close of this tour they regarded 
the work of book-selling for most of Shantimg as so 
far completed as henceforth to deserve a more sub- 
ordinate place. During part of his stay at the capital 
Mateer preached and sold books, and part of the time 
he remained in his hired lodgings to receive visitors, 
of whom he had not a few. To him one of the 
interesting sights was the Yellow River. On their 
return journey they took in Tsingchow fu, and also 
Ping Tu, where the Christians then were terrified by 
persecution. 

After this he made only one more exclusively 
evangelistic itineration. The care of the infant 
churches and other duties called him to continue to 
go longer and shorter distances from home; and in 
connection with this he did a great deal of preaching 
here and there by the way. For instance, in 1881 he 
attended a meeting of the Mission at Tsinan fu, and 
incidentally he preached in a hundred and sixty- 
three villages. It was travel for the specific purpose 



126 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

of carr3dng the gospel into wholly unevangelized 
regions that he ceased to perform. In a friendly 
letter written to his cousin, Mrs. Gilchrist, as early as 
June 28, 1875, he said: 

The first years I was in China I traveled a good 
deal, and preached and sold books in the streets. 
I have not done so much of it the last two or three 
years, having been more closely engaged in my school. 
The younger men in the mission have been doing it 
chiefly. I am preparing a number of books for the 
press, and this has taken a good deal of time, and will 
take time in the future. 

That final evangelistic itineration was made in 
1878, and lasted from the middle of October to the 
middle of November. It was out toward the general 
region of Ping Tu and Laichow fu. The party 
consisted of Mateer and Mills^ Mrs. Mateer and 
Mrs. Shaw, and a couple of Chinese assistants. Mrs. 
Mateer and Mrs. Shaw visited the native Christians 
while the men went to districts where there were no 
churches. In a letter to the Board Mateer said: 

We each hired a donkey to carry our bedding and 
books, while we walked from village to village, and 
preached in the streets. I preached in this way in 
one hundred and ninety villages, and Mr. Mills in 
about as many. We went aside from the great roads 
into villages never before visited by any foreign 
missionary. We had audiences of from eight or ten, 
up to two or three hundred. In many cases we had 
a goodly proportion of women as hearers. Our recep- 
tion was very various, for which in most cases we have 
no means of accoimting. In some cases many came 



WORK OF AN EVANGELIST 127 

out to see and hear us. In other cases no one seemed 
incHned to pay any attention to us, and a considerable 
time would elapse before we would succeed in drawing 
a company to preach to. In one village I failed en- 
tirely to get anyone to listen. A goodly number saw 
us, but they passed by without stopping. One boy 
ventured to ask where we came from, when instantly 
a man near by at work reproved him for speaking to 
us. My assistant and I sat and waited about half 
an hour, and then went on to the next village. We 
carried a few books in our hands as a sort of advertise- 
ment of our business, and to give to such as would 
accept them. Sometimes the books were readily ac- 
cepted, and we could have given away any number; 
but frequently not a soul would accept a book. No 
doubt some would have liked very well to have a book, 
but they were ashamed to accept it from the hated 
foreigner in the presence of so many of their neighbors 
and acquaintances. Only in two or three cases was 
any open hostility shown us, and in these it was 
confined to two or three individuals who failed to 
carry the crowd with them, so that in spite of their 
attempts to scatter our audience we still had plenty 
of hearers. 

Then as to the value of this kind of missionary 
effort he added an estimate from which he never 
deviated, and which in substance he continued to 
repeat: 

This method of work is very excellent, and at the 
same time very laborious. It reaches obscure places, 
and a class of people — those who stay at home — not 
otherwise reached. To be successful it must be 
pursued at a time of year when the people are some- 
what at leisure. 



VIII 

THE TENGCHOW SCHOOL 

"The object of mission schools I take to be the education of 
native pupils, mentally, morally, and religiously, not only that 
they may be converted, but that, being converted, they may 
become effective agents in the hand of God for defending the 
cause of truth. Schools also which give a knowledge of western 
science and civihzation cannot fail to do great good both 
physically and socially." — the relation of Protestant mis- 
sions TO education; a paper read before the Shanghai Mis- 
sionary Conference of 1877. 

THE Tengchow School in 1884 was authorized 
by the Board of Missions to call itself a college. 
For several years previous to that date it 
deserved the name because of the work which it was 
doing in its advanced department. On the other 
hand, it did not cease at that time to maintain instruc- 
tion of an elementary and intermediate grade. In the 
present chapter we will for convenience confine our 
attention mainly to the twenty years lying between 
the opening of the school and the formal assumption 
of the name of a college. Beyond the end of that 
period Hes the story of the institution imder the title 
of the Shantung College, for another twenty years at 
Tengchow; and since then, of the Shantung Union 
College, at Wei Hsien. 

Under date of April 2, 1864, — less than three months 
after the Mateers arrived at Tengchow, — Dr. Mateer 

128 



THE TENGCHOW SCHOOL 129 

made this entry in his Journal, ''We have it in pros- 
pect to establish a school." Their plan at that time 
was to leave the Mills family in possession of the old 
Kwan Yin temple, and to find for themselves another 
house where they could reside and carry on this new 
enterprise. But when, during the latter part of that 
summer, they were left in sole possession of the temple, 
they proceeded at once so to fit up some of the smaller 
buildings in the court as to make it possible to 
accommodate the little school. In September the 
first term opened, with six little heathen boys, not one 
of whom had ever been to school before; and with 
quarters consisting of two sleeping rooms, a kitchen, 
and a small room for teaching. Chang, who was 
Mateer's instructor in Chinese, was set to work also 
to teach these boys; and a native woman was put in 
charge of the cooking department. To JuHa he always 
attributed the initiation of this entire work. For the 
first ten years the school was almost entirely hers, he 
being otherwise at work. In a conversation with Mrs. 
Fitch, of Shanghai, many years later he said: 

When JuHa began the boarding school for boys in 
Tengchow I thought it a comparatively small work; 
but as it enlarged, and also deepened, in its influence, 
I saw it was too much for her strength alone. I knew 
that we must put our own characters into those boys, 
and I could do nothing less than give myself to the 
work she had so begun. 

Almost half a century ago, when the school was 
started, and for some time afterward, mission boards 

9 



130 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

and missionaries had not settled down into their 
present attitude toward education, lower or higher, 
as an agency in the evangeUzation of the non- Chris- 
tian world. There were some very earnest and in- 
telligent workers who insisted that for an ordained 
minister to engage in teaching a school was for him to 
be untrue to the calling for which he had been set 
apart. To sustain their position they appealed to 
apostolic example, and pointed to the small results as 
to conversions in the instances in which this method 
had been tried. Among the advocates of schools also 
there was a lack of agreement as to the immediate 
object to be sought by the use of this agency. Ought 
it to be so much the conversion of the pupils, and 
through this the raising up of a native ministr}^, that 
all other results should be regarded as of small im- 
portance? Or, ought the school to be looked upon as 
an efficient means of preparing the soil for the good 
seed of Christian truth to be sown later by preaching 
the gospel? In the paper from which the quotation 
at the head of this chapter is taken ]\Iateer ably and 
fully discussed all of these questions, bringing out 
fairly both sides of them, and then presented his own 
convictions as he held them from the beginning of 
his missionary career, and as he unswer\ingly ad- 
hered to them all the rest of his hfe. He disclaimed 
any intention to exalt education as a missionar\^ agency 
above other instrumentaHties, and especially not 
above preaching the gospel; and claimed for it only 
its legitimate place. As to this he laid down and 



THE TEXGCHOW SCHOOL 131 

elaborated certain great principles involved in the 
nature of the case and verified by experience. Educa- 
tion, he said, is important in order to pro^"ide an 
effective and rehable mim'stn,'; to furnish teachers 
for Christian schools, and through them to introduce 
into China the superior education of the West; to 
prepare men to take the lead in introducing into 
China the science and arts of western ci^'ilization. as 
the best means of gaining access to the higher classes 
in China, of gi^'ing to the native church seH-reKance, 
and of fortif^dng her against the encroachments of 
superstition from within and the attacks of educated 
skepticism from without. On the last of these propo- 
sitions he enlarged with wise foresight : 

So long as all the Christian Hterature of China is 
the work of foreigners, so long will the Chinese church 
be weak and dependent. She needs as rapidly as 
possible a class of ministers with well-trained and well- 
furnished minds, who will be able to write books, 
defending and em'orcing the doctrines of Christianity, 
and apphing them to the circumstances of the church 
in China. . . . Again, as nati^'e Christians in- 
crease in numbers, and spread into the interior, they 
wiU pass more and more from under the direct teaching 
and control of foreigners. Then will arise danger 
from the encroachment of heathen superstition, and 
from the baneful influence of the Chinese classics. 
Superstitions of all kinds find a congenial soil in the 
human heart, and they often change their forms with- 
out changing their nature. The multiform supersti- 
tions of China will not die easily: and unless they are 
constantly resisted and ferreted out and exposed, 



132 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

they will commingle \\dth Christianity and defile 
it. . . . The day is not distant when the skep- 
ticism of the West will find its way into China. The 
day when it shall be rampant is not so distant as 
might be supposed. Error is generally as fleet-footed 
as truth. To repel these attacks, and \indicate the 
truth in the face of heathen unbeHef, vnR require a 
high order of education. An uneducated Christianity 
may hold its ovvtl against an uneducated heathenism, 
but it cannot against an educated heathenism. We 
w^ant, in a word, to do more than introduce naked 
Christianity into China, we want to introduce it in 
such a form, and with such weapons and supports, 
as \^ill enable it to go forward alone, maintain its 
o^TL purity, and defend itself from all foes. 

In \iew of these i'deals with regard to the object of 
such schools, he concluded his paper by urging that 
they should be of an advanced grade rather than 
primary, though not excluding the primary; that the 
natural sciences should be made prominent in the 
instruction; and that the pupils should be of Chris- 
tian parentage, rather than of heathen. His prophecy 
as to skeptical books from the West is already in 
process of fulfillment. 

It needs to be recognized that the substance of all 
this was in his mind when he opened that Httle ele- 
mentary school. But he had to begin wdth something 
that fell almost pitifully short of his ideal. The 
first thing that was necessary was to secure a few 
pupils imder conditions that made it worth while, 
in view of his object, to teach them. One of these 



THE TENGCHOW SCHOOL 133 

conditions was that the parents of the boys should 
formally bind themselves to leave them in the school 
six or seven years, so that they might fmish the studies 
prescribed. Otherwise they would stay only as long 
as suited them or their parents, and they would all 
the while be exposed to heathen influences that likely 
would nulHfy the Christian instruction received. On 
the other hand, this arrangement made it necessary for 
the school to furnish gratuitously not only the build- 
ings and the teachers, but the food and lodging and 
clothes of the pupils. Gradually this was so far 
modified that the parents provided their clothes and 
bedding and books. To meet the running expenses 
of the school the average cost of each pupil was 
ascertained, and an effort was made to secure from 
Sabbath schools in the United States a contribution 
of that amount. The plan of designating a particular 
boy for support by a particular Sabbath school was 
suggested from home for consideration, but was 
discouraged, on the ground that it might often prove 
disappointing, through the uncertainties as to the 
conduct of the boy; and it was rarely, if at all, prac- 
ticed. In order to secure these contributions each 
year a letter had to be carefully prepared, and then 
duplicated, at first by hand, and later by Hthographing 
process, and sent to the Sabbath schools that shared 
in giving for this purpose. These letters were of a 
very high order, taking for the theme of each some 
important phase of Chinese life and manners or of 
mission work. They might to advantage have been 



134 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

gathered into a volume; and if this had been done, it 
would be entitled to rank with books of the very best 
kind on the same general subject. The preparation 
of these letters and their multipHcation and distribu- 
tion cost very considerable time and labor; to lighten 
this for her husband, JuHa rendered valuable assis- 
tance, even to the extent eventually of taking upon 
herself the entire work, except the printing. 

The average expense of a boy was at first estimated 
at forty dollars, but with the rise of prices as the 
years went by, this estimate had to be raised. The 
scheme worked well enough to enable the school not 
only to go on, but gradually to increase its numbers 
as other events opened the way. Nor was there any 
difficulty in obtaining all the pupils that could be 
accommodated. At the beginning all were from 
families who were too poor to educate their boys in 
native schools, and to whom the fact that in addition 
to the good education received, their boy was also 
clothed and fed, proved inducement sufficient to over- 
come the opprobrium of allowing him to fall imder 
the influence of the hated foreigner. It really meant 
no little in those early days, and, in fact, in all ante- 
Boxer times, for parents, even though Christians, to 
send their boys to the Tengchow school. An honored 
native pastor who was at one time a pupil there wrote : 

When my parents first sent me to school, there was 
a great protest from all the village. They tried to 
scare my mother by sa}dng that the foreigners were 
vampires who could extract the blood of children by 



THE TENGCHOW SCHOOL 135 

magic arts. Nevertheless I was sent; though I must 
own that I was a Kttle scared myself. When I came 
home at Chinese New Year vacation, I was most care- 
fully examined by all these prophets of evil; and when 
they found that not only my pulse was still a-going, 
but that I was even rosier and in better flesh than 
before, they said that the three months I had been 
there were not enough to show the baneful results; 
only wait! After the Germans took Kiaochow and 
began the railroad, the rumors in that region became 
worse. Under each sleeper a Chinese child must be 
buried. To furnish axle grease for the ''fire-cart" 
human fat must be tried out — anyone could see the 
great boilers they had for the purpose; and under 
those great heaps of fresh-turned earth they buried 
the bones. 

At the time of the Tientsin massacre it was currently 
reported that Mateer was fattening boys for the purpose 
of killing them, and then taking their eyes and hearts 
to make medicine with which to bewitch the people. 

Nevertheless the numbers were always full, except 
at brief intervals, when reduced by popular disturb- 
ances, epidemics or such causes. The school in its 
second year had twelve pupils, just double the number 
with which it began its work. It will be remembered 
that in 1867 the Mateers built and occupied their 
new home. This vacated the old Kwan Yin temple 
premises. In the application to the Board to erect 
the new home Mateer said: 

We do not propose to vacate the old premises, but 
to appropriate them to the school, for which they 
would be admirably adapted. We look forward with 



136 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

confidence to an increase of the school. Our present 
number of scholars, however, occupy all the room we 
can possibly spare; if we increase we must build not 
only sleeping rooms, but a large schoolroom. This 
would not, it is true, cost as much money as a foreign 
house, but it would not come as far below as perhaps 
you might suppose. The main building would make 
one or two most admirable schoolrooms, which will 
accommodate any school we will likely ever have. 
One of the side buildings would make a very conve- 
nient dining room and kitchen, and the other, with addi- 
tional buildings made vacant, would with a very Httle 
refitting furnish at least ten new rooms besides what 
we now have. It will probably be many years before 
we will have more than these. 

With all his largeness of vision he did not yet foresee 
the coming Tengchow college; though he was planning 
for greater things for the mission as well as for the 
health and comfort of himself and wife. 

Because the language employed was solely Chinese, 
at the beginning neither Mateer nor his wife could 
take part in the instruction; all had to be done by 
the Chinese assistant, who was a professing Christian. 
It was not long, however, until both the Mateers were 
able to help; though at no time did he give himself 
exclusively to teaching. The boys were taught to 
read and write in their own language, so that for them- 
selves they might be able to study the Bible and other 
books which they were expected to use. Arithmetic 
was a part of this course in the elementary department 
with which the school began, and it was one of the 
very first of the branches of which Mateer took 



THE TENGCHOW SCHOOL 137 

charge. Mrs. Mateer had a class in geography, and 
widened their vision of the world by informing them 
of other lands besides China. Three times a week she 
imdertook the peculiarly difhcult task of instructing 
them to sing. Of course, there was morning worship. 
This was held in the schoolroom. The service con- 
sisted of a hymn, of a chapter in the New Testament 
read verse about, and a prayer. There was also 
evening worship. On Sabbath morning all attended 
the little native chapel. In the afternoon a sort of 
Sunday school was held, and in it Mateer taught the 
bigger boys, and Mrs. Mateer the smaller, in the 
Scriptures. At worship on Sabbath evening he ques- 
tioned them all in turn about the sermon in the 
morning. Such was the very humble way in which 
the school was nurtured in its infancy, and started on 
the road to become what has been pronounced to be 
the very best of all the colleges in China. 

Three months after the first opening the six pupils 
admitted were reduced to three, because the fathers 
of the other boys were unwilKng to sign the obligation 
to leave them in the school the required number of 
years. A decade after the school was begun Mateer 
said in a Sunday-school letter: 

Our boys are from nine or ten to eighteen or twenty 
years, and a number of them have been in school seven 
or eight years. If they have never been to school, we 
require them to come for twelve years, but take them 
for a less time if they have already been several years 
in a native school. We try to get those who have 



138 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

already been to school, as it is a saving both of labor 
and of money. 

At the end of a quarter of a century after the school 

was begun he said: 

During these years we took many boys into the 
school who came to nothing. Some were too stupid, 
and we had to send them away after they had learned 
to read and knew something of the Bible. Others 
were bad boys, and we had to dismiss them; and some 
got tired and ran away, or were taken away by their 
parents because they wanted them at home to work. 
We sifted out some good ones, who were bright and 
promised to make good men. 

The pupils they retained at the end of the first 
ten }'ears were culled out of more than twice their 
number. Of the routine of the school he wrote: 

The boys go to school at six o'clock in the morning, 
and study tiU eight. Then all meet in the large 
schoohoom for prayers. After this there is a recess 
of an hour for breakfast. At half-past nine they go 
to school again, and remain till half-past twelve. In 
the afternoon they have another session of four hours. 
During the shortest days of winter they have an 
evening session instead of a morning session. These 
are the ordinary hours of study in the native schools. 
At first we thought so many hours in school too much 
for either health or profit, but after trying our plan 
for several years, we were con\dnced that for Chinese 
children and Chinese methods of study the native 
plan is best. The great business in Chinese schools 
is committing the classics, which they do by chanting 
them over rhythmically at the top of their voices, 



THE TENGCHOW SCHOOL 139 

each one singing a tune of his own, and apparently 
trying to "hollow" louder than the others. The din 
they make would be distracting to one of us, but the 
Chinese teacher seems to enjoy it. The exercise it 
gives the lungs compensates, perhaps, for the want 
of more play hours. When Mrs. Mateer or I go into 
the school to hear classes, we, of course, make them 
stop their uproarious studying, and study to them- 
selves. About half the day our boys devote to Chris- 
tian and to scientific books. They learn a catechism 
of Christian doctrine, "The Peep of Day," Old Testa- 
ment history, "Pilgrim's Progress," "Evidences of 
Christianity," and memorize portions of Scripture. 
They study also geography, ancient history, arithme- 
tic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, natural philos- 
ophy, and chemistry. They are trained in singing, 
writing essays, and debating. The native books 
which they study are composed mostly of the maxims 
and wise sayings of Confucius and Mencius, together 
with a large number of poems. These books teach 
people to be hon-est and upright. They teach children 
to obey their parents and elder brothers. They also 
contain a great deal about the duties of the people to 
their rulers, and of the rulers to the people. They 
praise all good and virtuous men, and exhort all to 
lead virtuous hves; but they offer no motives higher 
than the praise of men. They teach nothing about 
God or future life. They are all written in what is 
called the classical style, which is to a Chinese boy 
what Latin is to an American boy. These books 
the boys commit to memory, and recite to their 
teacher, but without understanding them. When a 
book has been memorized and a boy can repeat it 
from beginning to end, the teacher commences to 
explain it to him. He has neither grammar nor 



140 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

dictionary to help him, but must learn all from the 
teacher's lips. When a young man can repeat all 
these books and give the explanation, and can write 
an essay in the same style, the Chinese consider him 
a scholar, and when he can do this, and in addition 
has mastered all the other branches of study mentioned 
above, we consider his education finished, and he grad- 
uates from our school. A boy must have a good mind, 
and be very dihgent if he gets through in twelve years. 

The clothes of the boys, of course, were entirely 
Chinese as to material and style. Their food was of 
like character. The dormitories were low rooms with 
earthen floors and the bedsteads were of dry mud. 
The letter continues: 

Teaching the boys their regular lessons is but a 
small part of the work to be done in such a school as 
ours. Ways and means have to be provided to have 
their food bought and properly cooked. The cook 
must be prevented from stealing it, and the boys 
from wasting it. Their clothes have to be made in 
proper season, and mended and washed, and the boys 
watched that they do not destroy them. Then each 
boy's grievances have to be heard and his quarrels 
examined into and settled. Bad boys have to be 
exhorted or reproved, and perhaps punished and every 
possible means used, and that constantly, to make the 
boys obedient and truthful and honest. We also 
strive to train them to habits of industry, persever- 
ance, and seK-reHance, without which their education 
will do them no good. Thus you see that to train up 
these boys so that they shall become good and useful 
men requires a great deal of labor, patience, and 
faith, and prayer. 



i 



THE TENGCHOW SCHOOL 141 

These are homely details, but we cannot overlook 
them, and understand the Hfe of the Mateers in its 
connection with this work. 

Discipline in any school composed of so many boys 
and of such varied age could not be an easy task; 
in this Chinese school it was peculiarly perplexing. 
There were some unusual incidents. Falsehood, 
stealing, quarreling, gluttony, and even sodomy were 
offenses that had to be dealt with according to the 
circumstances attending each case. One instance of 
discipHne was so distinctively Chinese that the descrip- 
tion of it by Mateer in his Journal deserves a place 
here. Under date of April 9, 1869, he wrote: 

One very distressing thing has happened within a 
month. Leon Chin Chi was being persecuted by his 
father in relation to the matter of his marriage engage- 
ment with Shang Yuin, when in a fit of desperation he 
went and bought opium, and took it to kill himself. 
Some of the boys suspected him, and went to see. 
They found him lying on his bed evidently in great 
distress of mind, and refusing to answer any questions 
save to say that his affairs were all over with. I 
inferred from this, as also from his saying to one of 
the boys that he would never see him again, that he 
had taken poison — most Kkely opium. I went and 
got a strong emetic, and mixed it up, but he refused 
to take it. I then got a stick and used it to such good 
purpose that in a very short time he was glad to take 
the medicine. It had the desired effect, and in a 
very short time he vomited up the opium. He seemed 
to lay the beating to heart very much. It was evi- 
dently a new idea to him to be put through in such a 



M 



142 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

style. After a day or two, when he had gone to school 
again, I gave him a formal and severe whipping in 
the presence of the school. I thought very seriously 
over the matter of whipping him, and concluded that 
it was my duty to do it. I believe now that it did the 
boy good. He was called before the session last week, 
when he manifested a good deal of sorrow and peni- 
tence. He was publicly reproved and admonished 
on Sabbath morning. I am sorry that he had such a 
weakness; it greatly decreases my rehance on him, 
and my behef in his genuine Christian character. 
It must be allowed that there is some Httle excuse, in 
the way in which the Chinese all regard suicide. 
He had not got those ideas all educated out of him. 

While Mateer differed in opinion from those 
missionaries who favored schools simply as effective 
agents for the conversion of the pupils, he regarded 
this as one of the leading results to be sought and 
expected. It was almost two years after the opening 
of his school when he had the great joy of baptizing 
one of the pupils. In describing the event to a 
secretary of the Board, he said: 

He is the oldest boy in the school, and is in fact a 
man in years, though his education is not yet nearly 
finished. He has been for two or three months feeling 
that it was his duty to profess Christ, but, as he is 
naturally modest and retiring, he did not make 
his wish known. His mother, to whom he was un- 
commonly attached, died recently, and this brought 
him to a full decision. His examination before the 
session was most satisfactory, showing that he has 
improved well his opportunities of learning the truth. 
I have great hopes of his future usefulness. He has 



THE TENGCHOW SCHOOL 143 

a good mind, and is a most diligent student, and if he 
is spared, and is taught of God's Spirit he may be 
a great treasure to us in preaching to the heathen. 

Three months later he wrote again of this young 
man as exemplary in conduct and as growing in 
grace, and added: 

I am thankful that I can now say that another has 
siQce been baptized. He is the most advanced 
boy in the school, and is in fact very nearly a man. 
His conversion was not sudden, but gradual, after 
the manner of almost all the Chinese. We trust, 
however, that he is a true child of God, and we have 
strong hope that if he is spared he will make a very 
useful man. 

The next year three more of the largest boys were 
received into the church. The session examined two 
others, but thought it best for them to wait a few 
weeks; and a number more v/ere hoping to be received, 
but were advised to defer the matter. Thus the 
conversion of the boys gradually progressed, until at 
the time when the school formally became a college, 
all who had graduated, and nearly all the pupils still 
enrolled who were sufficiently mature, were professing 
Christians. 

Julia's sister, Maggie Brown, came out to join the 
station at Tengchow early enough to render valuable 
help in the initial stages of the school. In 187 1 she 
married IMr. Capp. One of the necessities which 
Mateer recognized was that of a girls' school, his 
reason being the vital importance of pro\dding suit- 



n 



144 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

able wives for the young men whom he was train- 
ing. After her marriage Mrs. Capp took charge of 

such a school, and she and her brother-in-law, Mateer, 
continued to cooperate in that important enterprise. 
For use in teaching she translated a mental arithmetic, 
and in this she had his assistance. Dr. Corbett wrote : 
''In spite of all discouragements in the^way of securing 
permanent and efficient heads, and of the paucity of 
results, he never wavered in his support of the girls' 
school, and always planned for its welfare, because he 
saw in it an element necessary to the final success of 
the Christian Church." When Mrs. Capp died, she 
left her little all for the erection of buildings to be used 
by the school which he had encouraged, and to which 
she had consecrated the maturity of her powers. 

Thirteen years went by before any of the yoimg men 
graduated. The first class consisted of three men 
who had completed the course, which by that time 
had been enlarged beyond the curriculum already 
described so as to include astronomy, the text-book 
used being a good, stiff one, — no other than a transla- 
tion of Herschell's work. Of that first class Mateer 
said: ''They will probably teach for a time at least. 
There is more call for teachers than for preachers at 
present." Under date of May 2, 1877, he wrote as 
to this first commencement: 

We had a communion on the occasion. The 
speeches made by the young men at graduation were 
excellent, and the whole effect on the school was most 
happy. The boys saw distinctly that there is a 



THE TENGCHOV^ SCHOOL 145 

definite goal before them and their ambition was 
stirred to reach it. 

The report for that year speaks as follows: 

All of the graduates are men of excellent talents. 
They are really fine scholars both in their own language 
and Hterature and in western science. One of them 
goes to Hangchow to take charge of the mission school 
there, — a school which had flourished well-nigh twenty 
years before the school in Tengchow was born. An- 
other of them goes to Chefoo, to teach a school for 
the Scottish Presbyterian mission. The third goes 
to assist Dr. Nevius in his extensive country work, 
where I am sure he will render the most valuable 
service. One of our former pupils, who has been 
teaching in the school during the last year, also goes 
to assist Dr. Nevius in the same way. This he does 
of his own free will, knowing that he will have harder 
work and less pay. We expect a large number of new 
pupils next year. More are anxious to come than we 
can take. We will try to do the best we can. 

From May, 1879, ^^ January, 1881, the Mateers 
were absent from China, on their first furlough home. 
During this period the school was in charge of other 
missionaries, and a part of the time was without a 
regular superintendent; yet it continued its work 
fairly well. The return of the Mateers was made the 
occasion of a reception that must have been exceed- 
ingly pleasant to them. In the Simday-school letter 
for 1 88 1 he described it: 

From Chefoo to Tengchow we traveled in a shentza. 
The weather was cold and the ground covered with 
10 



146 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

snow. We got along comfortably, however, and 
reached Tengchow in safety. The schoolboys had 
heard of our coming, and were all on the lookout to 
meet us. It was Saturday afternoon, and they had 
no school; so they all came out of the city to meet us 
on the road. They met us in companies, and their 
beaming faces and hearty expressions of delight made 
us feel that we were indeed welcome back to Tengchow. 
Their faces looked very familiar, though some of the 
smaller boys had grown very much during our absence. 
The next week the school closed for the year. 

Late in 1881 they were gladdened by the arrival of 
Robert Mateer and Lillian as reenforcements to the 
mission. Robert has been one of the most efficient 
of the Presbyterian missionaries in Shantung, especi- 
ally in evangelism, and is still doing most excellent 
work. Lillian was attractive in person and proved 
herself an accomplished and successful teacher. In 
the course of time she married Mr. Samuel Walker. 
The failure of his health compelled their return home. 

The year 1882 seems to have been marked by a 
distinct advance all along the line. The average 
attendance rose to sixty-five. The new students were 
selected out of the possible admissions, and consisted 
of such as gave most promise as to work and character, 
some of them being already well advanced in their 
studies, and full-grown men. The secret of this was 
the enlargement of the constituency of the institution, 
through the reputation it had already won for itself 
among the Chinese in general, and through the in- 
crease of native Christians. Perhaps the most re- 



THE TEXGCHOW SCHOOL 147 

markable improvement was in the prosecution of their 
work by the students; a state of things due to such 
causes as the presence of a larger number of select 
and advanced pupils, with a fuller and higher and 
prescribed curriculum, ^dth formal public graduation 
at its completion. 

So straitened had their quarters become that in the 
following year another building was obtained, care 
being taken that its outfit should, as heretofore, be 
of so plain a character as not to Hft the men who went 
out from the institution above their o^n people in 
their ideas and habits of li\dng. Of course, the 
growth of the school and its differentiation according 
to the stages of the curriculum necessitated a con- 
siderable increase in the force of teachers. After 
graduates began to go out, several of these were 
employed. Lilhan ^Mateer for a while helped in the 
school, but it was not long until her marriage to 
Mr. Walker terminated her connection with the Pres- 
byterian work and her residence at Tengchow. In 
the autumn of 1882 very substantial and permanent 
help came by the arrival of ^Ir. and ]Mrs. W. 'M. Hayes, 
whose large ser^-ices will require further notice as this 
biography proceeds. Were it not that the story of 
the Hfe of ^Irs. Julia ^lateer is told fully in a suitable 
volume, much would be said here as to her remarkable 
achievements, especially in the school. 

Mateer's work in connection with the school lay 
only in part in the classroom; but whatever shape it 
took, it was always of such a character as to impress 



148 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

his own individuality in a remarkable degree. Both 
he and Julia regarded personal influence as of such 
vital importance that they were not quite prepared 
to welcome an increase of pupils so great as to hazard 
this element of training. Dr. Corbett says: "As a 
teacher he was enthusiastic and eminently successful. 
He was always wide-awake and never dull; so he was 
able to keep the attention of every student. Any 
attempt to deceive him was useless, and students 
found no comfort in going to a recitation unless they 
had been faithful in their preparation." The truth 
is that, helpful as he gladly made himself to everybody 
who tried to conduct himself as he ought, he was a 
terror to all triflers and evildoers, old or young. 
Dr. Mateer's surname in Chinese was Ti. The tiger 
is called Lao Hu. It is significant that among them- 
selves his students sometimes spoke of him as Ti 
Lao Hu. One thing he believed with his whole heart, 
and endeavored to impress in every legitimate way 
on his pupils. This is that the highest oflice to which 
a Christian man can be called is the ministry of the 
gospel. In all his conduct of the school his dominating 
desire was to raise up faithful, able, well-educated men, 
filled with the Spirit, to go forth as ambassadors of 
Christ to win China for Him. As Dr. Corbett adds: 
"For this purpose he gave wise counsel, intellectual 
effort, unceasing toil and daily prayer. He gave of 
his own money freely to help the destitute, and make 
it possible for youths of promise to fit themselves for 
usefulness." 



THE TENGCHOW SCHOOL 149 

Such, briefly told, is the story of the Tengchow 
school. In the two decades of its existence it had 
fully justified the consecrated wisdom of its founder 
and head. From the Httle elementary department 
with which it had opened, it had advanced so as to 
become also a high school, and at length to do work 
of full collegiate rank. At the time when it formally 
took the name of a college, there was an average 
attendance of seventy-five, including three day 
scholars. It had educated more or less completely 
perhaps two hundred pupils, who had come up from 
Chinese families, some of them Christian and many of 
them heathen. Of those who remained long enough 
to be molded by the influences of the institution and 
were mature enough, all made a public profession of 
their faith in Christ. They had been trained to live 
upright, godly. Christian lives; and they had seen 
one of their number die in peace through his faith in 
Christ. The character and the work of those who 
had gone out to do their part in the activities of the 
world were such as to command respect and confidence 
and influence. For the graduates who were beginning 
to be sent forth there was a demand to fill positions 
of high importance, much in excess of the supply, and 
by no means limited to Shantimg. Besides all that 
had been achieved, the prospect of far greater things 
in the future was assured. 



DC 

THE PRESS; LITERARY LABORS 

"Making books is a very important branch of missionary- 
effort, which I would by no means depreciate; but he who would 
undertake it should be sure of his call, and should not begin 
too soon. There is a temptation to forego active evangelistic 
work for the less laborious and perhaps more congenial work 
of sitting in a study, translating or studying the Hterature 
of the language. Much precious time is sometimes wasted 
in this way, especially in the earher stages of a man's Hfe, 
before he is quite able to weigh himself against his work. It 
is a rare thing indeed that a missionary should undertake 
writing or translating a book inside of five years, and then he 
should be supported by the advice and approval of his older 
associates." — ^missionaihes and the language, 1902. 



M 



ATEER was at no time a very prolific con- 
tributor to the home newspapers and peri- 
odicals. For about ten years, with some fre- 
quency, he wrote for ^'The Presbyterian Banner'' 
letters concerning the work of the mission done by 
himself and others in China; but after that he was 
too busy to continue such writing, except at long 
intervals. Once or twice he sent to the United States 
more labored replies to what he considered m^isleading 
articles that had appeared in such periodicals as *'The 
Princeton Review," in regard to the condition of 
things in China. He greatly deprecated laudation 
of matters Chinese and unwarranted hopefulness as 
to the immediate future of their country. He was 

150 



THE PRESS 151 

strongly inclined to question the wisdom of the policy 
which the United States was pursuing in China forty 
or fifty years ago, and he did not hesitate to express 
in print here at home his views on that line of topics. 
Beyond these fugitive contributions to the newspapers 
and periodicals he published little else in this country, 
save a booklet or two, one or more of which he pre- 
pared for the use of the Board at their request. Some- 
times he questioned whether his sHght use of the home 
press might not leave the impression there that he 
was not doing as much as others who were more 
frequent in their contributions; but all the same he 
gave himself to the other work which his hands found 
to do. 

Most of his contributions to current literature 
appeared in China and were written for "The Chinese 
Recorder." His articles in this periodical extend 
over almost his entire missionary Hfe, some of them 
being brief, but many of them being elaborate dis- 
cussions of great subjects affecting directly or indi- 
rectly the work of evangelization in non- Christian 
lands. His book on the Chinese term for God v/as 
not published until 1902, and, of course, was in Eng- 
lish, though with copious extracts from Chinese 
Hterature. His only other English book was a review 
of Dr. Nevius' ''Methods of Missions." 

His publications in Chinese, as we shall presently 
see, were very considerable in number, and were 
of large importance to the work of missions; for he 
at no time allowed himself to be diverted to the 



152 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

production of any treatise that would not be helpful in 
the one service to which he consecrated his life. But 
before he began to avail himself of the press for his 
own books, he was somewhat imwillingly compelled 
for a while to take the management of a printing 
establishment. Down at Shanghai there was already 
a mission press, the funds for the establishment of 
which had in large part been contributed for that 
distinct purpose, and which had been left hitherto 
to the management of the Presb}i;erian missionaries 
of that general region. The S\TLod of China — by 
order of the General Assembly of the Presb}1:erian 
Church in the United States — was organized in the 
autumn of 1S70, and the first meeting was held at 
Shanghai. The condition of the mission press at 
that place was brought before the s}Tiod, and was by 
that body handed over to the foreign missionaries 
in attendance, as more properly belonging to their 
control. A plan covering the entire operation of 
the plant, as drawn up by Mateer in a committee and 
approved by the entire body, was sent home to the 
Board for sanction, which in due time it received. 
One of the things for which immediate pro\'ision was 
necessar}* was a man to take charge of the establish- 
ment, and the choice, after repeated efforts to secure 
some other suitable person, and after his own refusal 
to take the place, returned to him in such a way that 
he felt that he could not decline it, if limited to a 
period of a year, and with the pri^-ilege of spending 
some time as necessar}- up at Tengchow. Of course, 



THE PRESS 153 

temporar}' arrangements had to be made for the con- 
duct of the school. For this purpose Julia's sister, 
INIaggie, was called into service; and with such assist- 
ance as she could command she gave excellent satis- 
faction. She was also in possession of the ^lateer 
home. As to the work to which he was thus tem- 
porarily called at Shanghai, he said in his Journal: 

WTiile it is a ver}' great trial to me to come to 
Shanghai, it is not without some inducement. It will 
increase ver}' largely my acquaintance, and will 
enlarge my knowledge of China and its affairs. Also 
I hope it may be the means of getting something of 
great benent done for Juha's health. I am ver\' sorry 
that the doctor who treated her before is not here now. 
My great sorrow is that it will interfere with my 
Chinese studies, and prevent me accomplishing what 
I had designed. 

It was not until August, 1872, that he finally went 
back to Tengchow to resume his work there. 

The details of his life while at Shanghai probably 
would not interest most readers. He said of it in 
his Journal, under date of Januar}' 29, 1872: 

I neglected everything to do the work in the press, 
and I worked with an assiduity that I have rarely 
given to an^-thing in my life. I had hoped when I 
went to Shanghai to have some time to study, but 
I found it utterly out of the question. The demands 
for the press were imperative, and I just gave myself 
to the work. 

Two sides of his capabilities were there brought into 
special requisition. One of these was his efficiency 



154 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

as a business manager, — a characteristic due partly 
to his native quahties, and partly to his habits of 
accuracy, of wise forethought, of careful oversight, 
and of insistence on the faithful performance of duty 
by all employees. This side of his character is brought 
out by his *' letter books." Separation by the space 
of half a globe from the base of supplies made it 
necessary to anticipate wants by eight or ten months. 
For convenient reference he caused every business 
letter, and many others, to be copied. Especially 
as the school and college at Tengchow grew on his 
hands he had to conduct what was in reality a large 
miscellaneous business, under conditions that were 
very exceptionally difhcult. He had not only to 
provide for his own wants in his family and in his 
work, but also to accommodate others by acting as 
their agent. His orders had to go sometimes to 
Shanghai, but more frequently to London, or to 
New York, or to some place in the interior of the 
United States. Many are curiosities, owing to the 
nature and the range of articles included — from a 
steam engine or a telescope or costly chemical supplies 
to a paper of pins. Some of the lists cover more than 
ten pages in the copy. Woe to the merchant or 
agent in London or New York or Shanghai who by 
mistake or for other reason sent without adequate 
explanation any article that was not quite in accord- 
ance with the order! He might expect to get a sharp 
letter, and a demand to rectify the mistake if that 
were practicable. Service as treasurer of the mission 



THE PRESS 155 

also gave him drill. Shilly-shally workmen are one 
of the horrors which sometimes call from him in his 
Journal groans of anguish. When he had completed 
his charge of the press establishment, including as 
it did a book department, a job department, a dwelling 
for the superintendent, quarters for the workmen, 
all of whom were Chinese, a chapel for these work- 
men, and other equipments, it was a well-organized 
business, running regularly and smoothly, and doing 
its work about as efhciently as was possible under the 
conditions. 

The other side of his capabilities there especially 
called into exercise was his mechanical gifts. As an 
illustration, the following from his Journal, under the 
same date as that just given, will answer: 

I had to get a Japanese dictionary started, and it 
was a most embarrassing affair. My predecessor 
had made promises which he could not fulfill. The 
men were there to print, and yet we had to send to 
England for paper to do the job. Also all the pro- 
nunciation marks for Webster's dictionary were to be 
put in, and we did not have the t3qDe or the matrices. 
I had to have the letters cut on wood, and matrices 
made; this was a world of trouble. Some of the 
letters were cut over half-a-dozen times or more, and 
after all they were far from perfect. I also had a set 
of shaped music types cut, and this took a deal of 
time and pains to get them all properly cut, as also 
to get the matrices made. I finally succeeded quite 
well in both respects. ... I also experimented 
not a little in stereotyping, and succeeded in doing 
fair work. I trained one boy who stereotyped 



156 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

Matthew before I left. In order to carry it on effec- 
tually and rapidly I had a furnace and press made and 
fitted up, which after sundry changes worked very 
well. ... I also had a new style of case for 
Chinese type made, which I think will be an improve- 
ment on the old. I also had a complete and thorough 
overhauHng of the matrices, reasserted them all, 
and had new cases made. This was a serious job, 
but it will I am sure prove a very great help to the 
efficient working of the establishment. 

He consented to manage the press only until a 
competent man could be secured to take it off his 
hands. When casting about for such a person, his 
mind had been directed to his brother John, nearly 
a year before he was himself forced into this position. 
John had hoped to go to college, and to prepare for 
the ministry, and to go out as a missionary, but, on 
account of certain tendencies developed as to his 
health, he was compelled to abandon his purpose. 
As to his mechanical gifts and his ability to turn them 
into use in a great variety of ways, he resembled 
Calvin; and the latter was so confident that John 
could soon fit himseff to be a competent superin- 
tendent of the press at Shanghai that he advised the 
Board of Missions to make inquiry in regard to him. 
The result was that eventually he was selected for 
the place, and he arrived in China early in August, 
1871. Before he could satisfactorily enter on his 
duties it was necessary for him to acquire some 
knowledge of the language and to acquaint himseff 
with the business committed to his charge. This 



THE PRESS 157 

detained Calvin until late in that year; and after a 
period of some three months spent at Tengchow, 
he returned to Shanghai to assist John in moving 
the press to new and much better premises that had 
been purchased. The moving proper was a heavy job, 
requiring a week of hard, dirty labor. The distance 
was about a mile, mostly by water, but by land a 
hundred or more yards at either end. While thus 
engaged, although he was no longer officially at the 
head of the business, he took the main charge, so as 
to allow his brother to give his time chiefly to the 
acquisition of the language and to other things that 
he needed to learn. 

The new place is the same now occupied by the 
press in Peking Road. Under the superintendency 
of Rev. G. F. Fitch, it has become the center not 
only of the Presbyterian missions, but of the general 
missionary activity all over China. In writing to 
his brother as early as November, 1869, he said of 
this plant: ^' It is a very important place, and would 
give you an extensive field for doing good. The 
establishment is not very large, it is true, as compared 
with similar establishments in such cities as New York 
or Philadelphia; yet it is the largest and best of the 
kind in China. It not only does all the printing for 
all our missionaries, but a great deal of job work 
for others; besides making and selling a large amount 
of type." After he had completed his term of the 
management, and while helping John to get into the 
traces, he wrote to one of the secretaries of the Board: 



158 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

I am not in favor of enlargement, but I would be 
very sorry to see the present efficiency of the press 
curtailed. It is doing a great and a good work not 
only for our missions, but for all China. It has exerted 
a prodigious collateral influence both in China and 
in Japan, affording facilities for the production of all 
kinds of scientific books, dictionaries, and so forth. 
Aside from any general interest in the missionary 
work, having at no small sacrifice left my proper work 
and given more than a year to the press, and also 
having a brother here in charge of it, I feel a lively 
interest in its future. 

The last record that has come down to us concerning 
his work there is: ''We have just sold to the Chinese 
government a large font of Chinese type. They are 
going to use movable metal type. This is a large 
step for them to take, and it will do good. China 
yields slowly, but she is boimd to yield to Christianity 
and Christian civilization." 

At no subsequent period of his life had he any 
part in the management of a printing establishment, 
but indirectly he continued to have much to do with 
the press. He was a member of a joint committee 
of the Shantung and the Peking mission, in charge 
of publications, and as such he had to acquaint himself 
with what was needed, and with what was offered, 
so as to pass intelligent judgment. Unofficially and 
as a friend whose aid was solicited, he revised one or 
more of the books which his associates submitted 
to him for criticism. At the General Conference of 
Missionaries, held at Shanghai in 1877, a committee, 



LITERARY LABORS 159 

of which he was a member, was appointed to take 
steps to secure the preparation of a series of school- 
books for use in mission schools. Not long after- 
ward he pubKshed an elaborate paper on the subject, 
discussing in it the character which such publications 
should have, and especially calling attention to the 
need of pecuHar care as to the Chinese words which 
ought to be employed in the treatises on the sciences. 
That committee dihgently set itself to work, and 
initiated measures for a rather comprehensive set 
of books by various missionaries to meet the want 
recognized in this general field. He was himself 
called upon to prepare several books, some of which he 
was willing to undertake; others he put aside as not 
properly faUing to him. In one or two instances he 
claimed for himself precedence as to treatises suggested 
for others to write. Some friction occurred, and when 
the Conference met again in 1890 that committee 
was discharged, and an Educational Association, 
composed of missionaries familiar with the needs of 
schools, and confining its functions more exclusively 
to the publication of books for teaching— largely 
under his leadership — was formed. He was its first 
chairman. This change he had warmly favored, and 
he was an active member of the Association. In 
it he was chairman of a committee on scientific terms 
in Chinese, a subject of great difficulty, and of prime 
importance in the preparation of text-books. In 
the subsequent years he was so much occupied with 
the revision of the Mandarin Bible, and with other 



160 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

duties, that he could give to the technical terms only 
a secondary place in his activities. Still, six years 
after he accepted this chairmanship he says: ''I have 
collected a large number of Hsts of subjects for 
terms in chemistry, physics, mathematics, astronomy, 
geology, metallurgy, photography, watch-making, 
machinery, printing, music, mental and moral philos- 
ophy, poHtical economy, theology, and so forth. '^ 
Subsequently he continued this work. 

The first Kterary production of his own pen in 
Chinese was a tract on infant baptism; this was 
called forth by local conditions at Tengchow. A small 
sheet tract, entitled "A Prayer in Mandarin," also 
followed early. As chairman of the committee ap- 
pointed by the Educational Association, he made a 
report on chemical terms, and recommended a new 
and distinctively Chinese method for the S3nnbols 
in that science. This was printed. 

In a prehminary report of the Shanghai press, made 
in September, 1871, he, in a list of books in course of 
preparation, mentions under his own name as au- 
thor the following: "i. Catechism on Genesis, with 
answers to the more difficult questions, — finished, 
needing only a slight revision. 2. An explanation of 
the moral law as contained in the ten command- 
ments, — half-finished. 3. Scripture Text-Book and 
Treasury, being Scripture references by subjects, 
supplying in great part the place of a concordance, — 
one-third finished.^ ^ All of these had been under way 
for several years, but had been frequently shunted 



LITERARY LABORS 161 

off the track by other imperative work. Very soon 
after that date the catechism was published. He had 
a good deal to do with Julia's ''Music Book," espe- 
cially in coining appropriate terminology, though he 
never claimed joint authorship in it. Along with Dr. 
Nevius, he pubhshed a hymn book for use in Chinese 
services; and down to the close of his life, especially 
on a Sabbath when he did not preach, he now and then 
made an additional Chinese version of a hymn. In 
fact, whenever he heard a new hymn that especially 
moved him he wished to enrich the native collection 
by a translation of it into their speech. One which 
the Chinese came greatly to Hke was his rendering 
of the Huguenot song, "My Lord and I.'^ A subject 
that was always dominant in his mind and heart was 
the call to the ministry, and it was significant that one 
of the last things on which he worked was a transla- 
tion of the hymn which has the refrain, "Here am I, 
send me." It was not quite finished when his illness 
compelled him to lay down his pen; but recently at 
a meeting of the Chinese student volunteers, consti- 
tuting a company rising well toward one hundred and 
fifty, that hymn was printed on cards, and a copy was 
given to each of these candidates for the ministry. In 
1907 he had carried a theological class through the 
Westminster Shorter Catechism, and as an outcome 
his translation was published. This is the last religious 
book he made in Chinese. During his long service 
as a missionary he taught a number of theological 
classes in various studies, and his lectures were 



162 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

regarded as very superior, but he published none of 
them. 

His schoolbooks all originated in the necessities 
of his own work as a teacher. The first thus to force 
itseh upon his attention was an arithmetic. He was 
already at work on it in 1868, and it went to press 
while his brother John was superintending the plant 
at Shanghai. The preparation of such a book, to 
one unacquainted with the conditions imder which 
this one was made, may seem to have been a rather 
easy imdertaking, and to have required little more 
than a sufficient mastery of the Chinese language and 
of EngHsh; yet there were some perplexing questions 
that arose in connection with it. For instance, the 
method of writing numbers horizontally was wholly 
unknown to the Chinese. Should the new arithmetic 
use the western, or should it retain the Chinese 
method? To retain the Chinese would be to train 
the pupils in a usage that would be confusing in subse- 
quent reading of western mathematics; to abandon 
it would be equally confusing in printing the text 
of the book, which, according to Chinese usage, must 
be arranged perpendicularly. The difficulty was 
gotten over by dupHcating each pattern example, 
giving it once horizontally and once perpendicularly. 
Pupils using the book were permitted to take their 
choice in performing their work, but in the text proper 
all numbers appeared vertically. Such lines as those 
dividing the numerator and denominator of a fraction 
stood perpendicularly, with the figures to the right 



LITERARY LABORS 163 

and the left. Until he pubHshed his arithmetic, 
the Chinese numerals had been employed; he intro- 
duced the Arabic. At the dawn of the new era subse- 
quent to the Boxer outbreak, almost the first book 
in demand by Chinese teachers and pupils outside the 
mission schools was a western arithmetic; and among 
others put upon the market were many *' pirated" 
editions of Mateer's book, printed on cheap paper 
and with wooden blocks. The pubHshers had not 
yet learned the significance of "copyright." The 
circulation of the book, however brought about, had 
at least the effect of immediately increasing the reputa- 
tion of its author among the scholarly classes outside 
the church. Of the editions issued by the press at 
Shanghai tens of thousands of copies have been sold. 
Dr. Fitch writes that ''it is impossible to state the 
total number," and that "the book has gone into all 
parts of the empire." 

In October, 1884, he submitted to the schoolbook 
committee of the Educational Association the manu- 
script of his geometry, and in doing so he said of it: 

It is the result of much pains and labor. . . . 
The book is written in plain Wen-li, and much pains 
has been taken to make it smooth in style and accurate 
in meaning. In the few equations used I have intro- 
duced the mathematical signs employed in the West, 
of which I have given a full explanation in the be- 
ginning of the book. . . . Mathematical signs 
and symbols are a species of universal language, used 
aHke by all civilized nations, and it is unwise to change 
them until it is absolutely necessary. The young men 



164 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

who have given most effective assistance in the prepa- 
ration of this geometry are decided in their opinion 
that we should not change or garble the mathematical 
symboHsm of the West, but give it to them in its 
integrity. The only change made is in writing 
equations perpendicularly instead of horizontally, — 
a change which is necessitated by the form of Chinese 
writing. 

The book was published the following year. To 
the same committee he reports in March, 1882, that 
his algebra was then all in manuscript, and only 
needing revision and some rearrangement before print- 
ing. The geometry was followed by his algebra, 
first part. These have had a large sale, though, 
because fewer studied this branch, not the equal of 
the arithmetic. 

On January 14, 1908, he sent to the manager of the 
press the preface to the second volume of his algebra, 
which covers the same ground as the ** University" 
edition in the United States. Of this Dr. Hayes says: 
''Over twenty years ago he began the preparation 
of Part II of his algebra, and the draft then made was 
used in manuscript for many years. Other duties 
pressed upon him, and he was compelled to lay it 
away unfinished. Yet he had not forgotten it, but 
from time to time he would make a step in advance. 
It was only a few months before his death that the 
work was completed and published." 

There were a number of other books which he 
planned, on some of which he did considerable work, 



LITERARY LABORS 165 

but none of which he completed. One of these was 
so colossal in its projected scope and scholarship that 
it deserves special notice because indicative of the 
large things to which early in his missionary career 
he was already eager to give his time and abilities. 
This was a Mandarin dictionary. In its preparation 
he sought to associate with himself Rev. Chauncey 
Goodrich, of Peking; and in writing to him under date 
of June 6, 1874, he thus stated his conception of the 
work: 

My idea of the book is a dictionary of the spoken 
language of north China, in all its length and breadth, 
including on the one hand all the colloquialisms that 
the people use in everyday life, — all they use in 
Chi-H and in Shantung, and in all the Mandarin- 
speaking provinces, so far as we can get it, noting, 
of course, as such, the words and phrases we know 
to be local. Further, let it include as a prominent 
feature all sorts of ready-made idiomatic phrases, 
and in general all combinations of two or more char- 
acters in which the meaning coalesces, or varies from 
the simple rendering of the separate characters. 

Considerable preliminary work had already been 
done, when the death of Mrs. Goodrich compelled 
her husband to withdraw from the partnership; and 
the project was abandoned by Mateer, though with 
a hope that it might be resumed. In 1900, however, 
as the fruit of this and kindred studies he published 
an analysis of two thousand one hundred and eighteen 
Chinese characters. This little book was designed 
to help children in dictation exercises to write char- 



166 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

acters, and is still largely used for this purpose by 
mission schools. The huge dictionary, though never 
completed, had three direct descendants. With Dr. 
Goodrich it produced first a Chinese phrase book, 
and then a pocket Chinese-English dictionary, which 
for brevity and comprehensiveness is a marvel, and 
which is regarded by almost every student of Chinese 
as a necessity. In marked contrast with these two 
volmnes is an immense dictionary left behind in 
manuscript by Dr. Mateer. It is wholly in Chinese; 
and as it Hes unfinished it occupies more than a cubic 
foot of space, and consists of a set of volumes. No 
comprehensive dictionary of the Chinese language has 
been pubhshed for two hundred and fifty years, and 
the last issued had been mainly classicaL The ob- 
ject of this was to supply the evident need of a great 
new work of that sort. One insurmountable difficulty 
encountered was a phonetic arrangement commanding 
common usage. None had the requisite approval. 
Fortunately, on this undertaking Dr. Mateer did not 
spend his own time, except so far as that was necessary 
to direct the preparation of it by his scribes when they 
were not otherwise employed. 

In his letter to his college classmates in 1897 he 
says that he has "well in hand a work on electricity, 
and one on homiletics prepared when teaching the- 
ology." Neither of these was finished and published. 
To his college classmate, S. C. T. Dodd, Esq., he wrote 
in 1898 that he was trying also to finish a work on 
moral philosophy. In March, 1878, he wrote to Dr. 



LITERARY LABORS 167 

W. A. P. Martin, of Peking: ^'You will remember 
probably that when you were here I spoke of my inten- 
tion to make a natural philosophy by and by. You 
said, 'Go ahead,' and that you would retire in my 
favor by the time mine was ready, say, ten years 
hence. If I am spared I hope to have the book ready 
within the time, if not sooner. As you know, natural 
philosophy is my hobby, and I have taught it more 
thoroughly probably than has been done in any other 
school in China. I intend when I visit America to 
prepare myself with the material and the facilities 
for such work." He was not able to find time for 
this work; and when later Dr. Martin invited him to 
write for the revised edition of his treatise the chapter 
on electricity, this privilege had for the same reason 
to be put aside. He had also advanced far toward 
the completion of a translation of "Pilgrim's Pro- 
gress" into Mandarin. 

His "Mandarin Lessons" was published early in 
1892, and immediately commanded a success even 
larger than its author may have anticipated. Ever 
since, it has gone on toward a more general use by 
foreigners wishing to master the language, and has 
now far outstripped every other work of its kind. 
He was a quarter of a century in making the book. 
June 28, 1873, he made the following entry in his 
Journal concerning it: 

Most of last week and this I have spent in making 
lessons and planning a much larger number than I 
have made. Mr. Mills urged me to work at them for 



168 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

Dr. 's benefit, as he did not seem to take hold of 

Wade. I did not think of what a job I was sliding 
into when I made three lessons for Maggie a few years 
ago. I have now laid out quite an extensive plan, 
and if I am spared I trust I shall be able to finish it, 
though it will take a deal of work. I believe that I 
can produce a far better book than any that has yet 
been brought forth. I was not intending to do this 
work now, and cannot work much more at it, as other 
matters imperatively demand attention. 

Guided by the hint in this quotation, we are able 
to trace the book still farther back to its very be- 
ginning. June 20, 1867, he said in his Journal: 
*' Maggie Brown [JuKa's sister] has been pushing on 
pretty lively with the Chinese. I made her lessons 
for a good while, which she studies, and now she is 
reading 'The Peep of Day.^ I tried to make her 
lessons with a view to bringing out the pecuKarities 
of Chinese idiom. It led me to a good deal of think- 
ing and investigating. I have a mind to review and 
complete the work, and may some day give it to the 
world. My great difficulty is in classifying the results 
attained." 

As the years went by his ideas of the plan for the 
work took definite shape. In one of his letters con- 
cerning it he wrote: 

Each lesson illustrates an idiom, the word idiom 
being taken with some latitude. The sentences, 
as you will see, are gathered from all quarters, and 
introduce every variety of subjects. I have also 
introduced every variety of style that can be called 



LITERARY LABORS 169 

Mandarin, the higher style being found chiefly in 
the second hundred lessons. The prevaiHng object, 
however, is to help people to learn Mandarin as it is 
spoken. I have tried to avoid distinct locahsms, but 
not coUoquiaHsms. A large acquaintance with these 
is important, not to say essential, to every really 
good speaker of Mandarin. It is, of course, possible 
to avoid the most of them, and to learn to use a narrow 
range of general Mandarin which never leaves the 
dead level of commonplace expressions, except to intro- 
duce some stilted book phrase. This, however, is 
not what the Chinese themselves do, nor is it what 
foreigners should seek to acquire. Many collo- 
quialisms are very widely used, and they serve to give 
force and variety to the language, expressing in many 
instances what cannot be expressed in any other way. 
I have tried to represent all quarters, and in order to 
do so I have in many cases given two or more forms. 

In the pursuit of his plan he sought the aid of 
competent scholars in the north and in central China, 
so as to learn the colloquialisms and the usage of words; 
also in the preparation of a syllabary of the sounds 
of characters as heard in each of the large centers where 
foreigners are resident. To accompHsh this he also 
traveled widely. Late in 1889, after a summer spent 
in studying the dialects of China, he, in company with 
JuHa, made a three months' trip to the region of the 
Yangtse, going down on the Grand Canal, spending a 
month on the great river, and remaining a month at 
Nanking; always with the main purpose of informing 
himself as to the current Mandarin, so as to perfect 
his book. This tour enabled him to give it the final 



170 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

revision; and in his opinion it ^^more than doubled 
the value" of the "Lessons." As finished, they were 
a huge quarto of six hundred pages, which with the 
help of Mrs. JuHa Mateer he saw through the press 
down at Shanghai. In 1901, assisted by Mrs. Ada 
Mateer, he issued a more elementary work of the same 
general nature. 

The protracted study and care which he put upon 
the "Lessons" were characteristic of him in all his 
literary productions. Upon this subject no one is 
better qualified to bear testimony than is Dr. George 
F. Fitch, Superintendent of the Presbyterian Mission 
Press, at Shanghai, who speaks from direct personal 
observation. He says: 

One very marked characteristic of Dr. Mateer was 
the almost extreme painstaking with which he went 
over any work which he was getting ready for publica- 
tion; revising and re-revising, seeking the judgment of 
others, and then waiting to see if possibly new Hght 
might dawn upon the subject. I remember reading 
shortly after I came to China the manuscript of a 
paper which he had prepared with great labor, upon 
the much-mooted "term question"; and in which he 
had collected, with infinite pains, seemingly a great 
number of quotations from the Chinese classics and 
other native works, bearing on the use of Shen as the 
proper word for God in Chinese. I urged him to 
publish at once, as I thought it might be useful in 
helping settle that question. But he stoutly refused, 
saying that it was not yet complete. Nor did it 
finally see the Hght, in print, until nearly twenty 
years afterward. 



LITERARY LABORS 171 

None of his books at all reveal the protracted and 
toilsome process of the preparation. We see only the 
result of years of research. For instance, in his 
library there was a long row of Chinese books each 
one of which showed a large number of httle white 
slips at the top. Each one of this multitude of marks 
had been placed there by some student whom he had 
employed respectively to read works in Chinese 
likely to use the word Shen, in order to indicate the 
passages at w^hich he needed to look. All these were 
canvassed, and the difi'erent shades of meaning were 
classified. 

From the '^Mandarin Lessons," and recently from 
the arithmetic, he received substantial pecimiary 
returns, though not at all sufficient to entitle him to 
be regarded as wealthy. In his manner of li\dng he 
would have been untrue to his training and impulses 
if he had not practiced frugahty, economy, and 
simplicity. As the means came into his possession 
he used them generously both for personal friends and 
for the promotion of the cause to which he had conse- 
crated his hfe. Of his outlays for the school and 
coUege we shaU presently need to speak. The 
expenses of the Yangtse trip came out of his own 
pocket. March 9, 1895, ^^ wrote to one of the secre- 
taries of the Board: 

The mission minutes spoke, if you remember, of 
my intention to erect a building for a museum and 
public lecture room, and present it to the Board. 
This I intend to do at once. It wiU cost about 



172 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

twelve hundred dollars, possibly more. I may say 
in the same connection also that my *' Mandarin 
Lessons" has fully paid all the cost of printing, 
and so forth, and I expect during the next year to 
pay into the treasury of the Board one thousand 
dollars, Mexican. This I do in view of the liberality 
of the Board in giving me my time while editing and 
printing the book. When the second edition is 
printed I expect to pay over a larger amount. I 
need not say that I feel very much gratified that the 
book has proved such a success: especially do I feel 
that it has been, and is going to be, very widely use- 
ful in assisting missionaries to acquire the Chinese 
language. My scientific books are also paying for 
themselves, but as yet have left no margin of profits. 

May 20, 1905, he wrote to a secretary: ^^I may say, 
however, that in view of the great importance of the 
school both to the Tengchow station and as a feeder 
to the college at Wei Hsien, I have set apart from the 
profit of my 'Mandarin Lessons' enough to support 
the school for the present year." December 13, 1906, 
he wrote to a friend in the United States: "My 
brother is now holding a large meeting of elders and 
leading men from all the stations in this field. There 
are about three hundred of them. It is no small 
expense to board and lodge so many for ten days. 
I am paying the bill." In one of his latest letters 
to me he mentions this ability pecuniarily to help as 
affording him satisfaction. 



THE CARE OF THE NATIVE CHRISTIANS 

"The need of the hour in China is not more new stations with 
expensive buildings and wide itinerating. It is rather teaching 
and training what we have, and giving it a proper development. 
Most of all we should raise up and prepare pastors and preachers 
and teachers, who are well grounded in the truth, so that the 
Chinese Church may have wise and safe leaders. . . . There 
are already enough mission stations, or centers, in the province, 
if they were properly worked. The need of the hour is to 
consolidate and develop what we have, and by aU means in 
our power develop native agency, and teach and locate native 
pastors, — men who are well grounded in the faith." — letter 
TO SECRETARY FOX, of the American Bible Society, January 6, 
1906. 

DR. MATEER believed that sooner than most 
missionaries anticipated the Chinese Chris- 
tians will join together and set up an inde- 
pendent church. He meant by this not merely a union 
of the ministers and churches of the various Presby- 
terian denominations at work in the country, such as 
has already been effected, but an organization that 
would include in its membership all the Protestant 
Christians, and that would leave little or no place for 
the service of foreign missionaries. He regarded this 
as inevitable; and for that reason he considered it 
to be of prime importance that such an effective 
preHminary work should promptly be done, that 
this coming ecclesiastical independence might not be 

173 



174 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

attended by unsoundness as to creed or laxity in life. 
At the same time, in holding up the care and the 
training of the native Christians as so important a 
part of the work of the foreign missionary in China, in 
anticipation of what is ahead, he was only for an addi- 
tional reason urging what he had in all his long career 
recognized as second to no other in importance. Of 
course, at the beginning of the effort to give the gospel 
to a people it is indispensable to do ''the work of an 
evangehst"; that is, to seek by the spoken word and 
by the printed book to acquaint them with elementary 
Christian truth, and to endeavor to win them to 
Christ; and we have already seen how dihgent Dr. 
Mateer was in this service, especially in his earher 
missionary years. But he was just as diligent in 
caring for the converts when gained; and in the school 
and college it was the preparation of men for pastors 
and teachers and evangehsts that was constantly his 
chief aim. 

The first body of native Christians with whose 
oversight he had anything to do was that very small 
band that had been gathered into the church at 
Tengchow. Mills was the senior missionary, and as 
such he presided over that Httle flock until his death. 
In 1867 he was installed as the pastor, and he con- 
tinued in this office nearly twenty years. During 
this long period Dr. Mateer at times suppHed the 
pulpit and cared for the church in Mills's absence or 
illness, but for most of the time it was only as a sort 
of adviser that he could render help in that field. 



CARE OF NATIVE CHRISTIANS 175 

We have no reason to think specially unfavorably 
of Chinese converts because some of those with whom 
he then had to do at Tengchow, or elsewhere, proved 
themselves, to him, to be a discouraging set of pro- 
fessing Christians'. Were not a good many of 'Paul's 
converts very much of the same grade when he 
traveled among the churches, and wrote his letters? 
Did it not take much patience, and fidehty, and per- 
sistence on the part of Christ to make anything worth 
while out of his select disciples? Yet these consti- 
tuted the membership of the primitive church from 
which even the missionaries of our day have originated. 
At any rate some of the earliest experiences of Dr. 
Mateer with the native Christians were of a very 
depressing sort. In his Journal, imder date of March 
17, 1864, he made this record: 

Since coming to Tengchow there have been great 
difficulties in the native church. Several of the mem- 
bers were accused by common fame of various im- 
moral practices, — one of smoking opium, another of 
l>dng and conforming to idolatrous practices, and 
another of breaking the Sabbath. The second of these 
confessed his fault, and was publicly reproved; the 
third also confessed, and on his profession of penitence 
was restored to the confidence of the church. But 
though the first confessed to the use of the ashes of 
opium, he gave no certain assurance of amendment; 
and he was suspended, and so remains. These matters 
gave us all a great deal of anxiety and sorrow of heart. 
It is sad thus to find that even those who profess the 
name of Christ are so much under the power of sin. 
It is one of the great discouragements of the missionary 



176 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

work. Yet God is able to keep even such weak ones 
as these unto eternal Hfe. 

Under date of September 15, 1866, he told of a 

worse case of discipline: 

We had a hearing with the accused, and gave him 
notice that he would be tried, and of the charges and 
witnesses. We wrote to Mr. Corbett at Chefoo, to 
get depositions for us. He did so, and we met, and 
tried him. The evidence was sufficient to convict 
him of lying, and of forging an accoimt, and of 
adultery; notwithstanding, he denied it all, endeavor- 
ing to explain away such evidence as he was forced 
to admit. We decided to excommunicate him, and 
it was done two weeks ago. 

It must not be supposed that there was a great deal 
of such discouraging work; as a rule, the native Chris- 
tians tried to Hve correct Hves; and the worst that 
could be said of most of them at those early dates was 
that they were ''babes" in Christ. But we cannot 
appreciate what the missionary needs to do as to the 
professed converts unless we look at this depressing 
phase. Besides, incidentally we are thus shown one 
of the methods by which the native Christians were 
trained in the conduct of their own churches. Each 
case is dealt with just as is required by the regulations 
of the denomination with which the church is asso- 
ciated. The same formalities and processes are em- 
ployed as if in the United States; the same fairness 
and fullness of investigation, with witnesses and hear- 
ing of the accused; and the same effort neither to 



CARE OF NATIVE CHRISTIANS 177 

fall below nor to exceed what justice and charity com- 
bined demand for the good of the individual and of 
the organization as a whole. As to this, in these par- 
ticular cases no exceptional credit can be claimed for 
Dr. Mateer; but we can be perfectly sure that it 
commanded his hearty approbation. This was a 
practical school also in which was called into exercise 
a quality of which a young missionary, and especially 
a man of his type, seldom has enough, — that of 
mingling a firm adherence to truth and righteousness 
with a forbearing kindness that will not break a 
bruised reed or quench the smoking flax. Gradually 
this became so characteristic of him that the boys in 
his school and the Christians in the churches were 
accustomed to come to him and unburden themselves 
not only of sorrows, but of faults, with no expecta- 
tion that he would condone wrong or shield them from 
its just consequences, but confident that he would 
feel for them, and help them if he could. Nor was 
it to these classes alone that his heart and hands 
opened. As they came to know him better, the pro- 
fessor in the imperial university sought his advice 
and the coolie turned to him in his need; and never in 
vain. 

But there was a brighter side to the experience 
of those early days. Several of the boys in the school 
were converted. What joy this afforded, we who 
live in Christian lands cannot appreciate. The Httle 
church at Tengchow also steadily moved forward 
in those early days of its history. In 1869 it had 



178 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

risen to about fifty members, and the attendance was 
such that a building solely for its services became 
indispensable; and in due time an appropriation was 
made by the Board of Missions, first for a lot, and soon 
after for a house of worship. Pastor Mills was then 
absent, and by appointment of presbytery Dr. Mateer 
acted as stated supply. As such, having first bought 
the lot, he made an appeal to the Board for the new 
edifice, saying: 

We hold our services in the boys* schoolroom, which 
has been kept inconveniently large, for this very 
purpose. It is the only room that wiU seat all, and 
it will not do it sometimes. The desks have to be 
carried out every Sabbath; and all the benches, 
chairs, and so forth, about the estabHshment carried 
in, making a decidedly nondescript collection. Aside 
from the inconvenience, two serious drawbacks are 
felt. One is the want of sacred associations about 
the place. AU heathen are wanting in reverence, 
and no small part of what they need is to have this 
idea instilled into their minds. We greatly need in 
this work a house especially devoted to the worship 
of God. The other drawback is the disorganizing 
effect the Sabbath and week-day services have on the 
school. The room being in the midst of the premises, 
it is impossible to prevent a large amount of lounging, 
gossiping, and so forth, in the boys' room before the 
service begins. The superintendent feels that it is 
a very serious drawback to the school, as weU as an 
injury to the native Christians. 

Any American who is familiar with students and 
their habits will perceive that in this matter Chinese 



CARE OF NATIVE CHRISTIANS 179 

young men and boys are very much like those of our 
own land. 

In that appeal there is another paragraph that 
deserves transcription here : 

It has been said that the Christians in heathen lands 
ought to build their own churches, but this is impos- 
sible in the early stages of the work, especially at the 
center of operations, where the foreigner preaches and 
teaches in person, and where a large part of his hearers 
are often from a distance. The church at this place 
gives character to the whole work in the eyes of the 
people at large, and must of necessity differ in many 
respects from churches in small places presided over 
by native pastors. Concerning these last we have 
already taken a decided stand, requiring the natives 
to help themselves to a great extent. 

Dr. Mateer was appointed by the presbytery to 
serve a second year as stated supply of the Tengchow 
church; and had it not been that he was called in 
1870 to Shanghai to take charge of the mission press, 
he no doubt would have given his personal supervision 
to the erection of the new house of worship. It 
was built during his absence, and when he came back 
he rejoiced in its completion. At the death of Mills 
in 1895, Dr. Mateer was chosen pastor, and was 
installed as such, — a position he was able to assume 
because he had found in Mr. Hayes a substitute for 
himself in the presidency of the college. He remained 
pastor until he went with the college to Wei Hsien. 
Dr. Hayes had already for year? worked quietly 
and efficiently in the school, under the presidency of 



180 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

Dr. Mateer, and had shown himself to be a man of 
exceptional ability and energy — a man after Dr. 
Mateer's own heart. After he assumed the presi- 
dency Dr. Mateer was still to assist in the college, 
but he was so often absent or otherwise engaged that 
both the college and the preaching were largely in 
the hands of Dr. Hayes. 

According to the ''Form of Government" of the 
Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, 
when a ''call" is made out for a pastor it must be 
certified to have been voted by a majority of the 
people entitled to exercise this right; and it must 
fill the blank in the following clause: "And that you 
may be free from worldly cares and avocations, we 
hereby promise and oblige ourselves to pay to you 

the sum of in regular quarterly (or 

half-yearly, or yearly) payments during the time of 
your being and continuing the regular pastor of this 
church." In the settKng of native pastors over the 
Chinese churches scattered through the coimtry, 
the filling of that blank, and the actual subscription 
of the funds needed for this and other expenses of 
the organization, usually require the presence of a 
missionary and of his earnest stimulation and guidance. 
Sometimes the pledges are very liberal, if estimated 
by ability of the members; and sometimes it is with 
great difficulty that they are brought up to the mea- 
sure of their duty. The salaries, however, are almost 
incredibly small, and even according to Chinese 
standards are scarcely sufficient for a livelihood. We 



CARE OF NATIVE CHRISTIANS 181 

need to keep this state of things in mind in order to 
appreciate the amount that was inserted in the blank 
in Dr. Mateer's call to the pastorate of the Tengchow 
church. In reporting the entire procedure to the 
Board of Missions, he said: ''The church in Teng- 
chow in calhng me for their pastor promised a salary 
of cash amounting to fifty dollars, which is to be used 
to employ an evangelist whom I am to select and 
direct." Of course, he continued to receive his own 
pay as a missionary from the funds of the Board. 
The fifty dollars was probably a creditable amount, 
as contributed by the native members out of their 
narrow means; and as a salary for a native evan- 
gelist it was at least a fair average. 

When reporting this pastorate to the Board of 
Missions, Dr. Mateer said, ''This is work that I love 
to do, especially the preaching." When doing the 
work of an evangelist among the people at large, ser- 
monizing could have no place. Even formal addresses 
of any sort were rarely practicable. The best that 
the missionary can do when itinerating is to get 
attention by any legitimate means, and then to talk, 
and hear and answer questions, and bear with all 
sorts of irrelevancies and interruptions. But when a 
church is organized, a sermon, consisting of a passage 
of Scripture and a discourse built upon it, is just as 
much in place as it is in one of our home houses of 
worship on the Sabbath. It was to the opportunity 
for that form of service that he refers when he ex- 
pressed his pleasure in the pastorate. In this also 



182 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

he greatly excelled. Some who knew him most in- 
timately, and who appreciated fully his great worth 
and efl&ciency, did not regard him as a very eloquent 
preacher in an English pulpit. He commanded the 
attention of his audience by his strong, clear, earnest 
presentation of the great reHgious truths which he 
believed with all his soul. The personahty and conse- 
cration of the man were a tremendous force when he 
stood in a pulpit in his own land ; what he lacked was 
the abihty which some speakers possess of carrying 
his audience with him, almost irrespective of the 
thoughts to which they give utterance. But in 
preaching to the Chinese he took on an extraordinary 
effectiveness. There was in the man, in the movement 
of his thought, in his mastery of the language, in the 
intense earnestness of his delivery, in the substance 
of his sermons and addresses, much that captivated 
the native Christians, and made others bow before 
his power. Mr. Bailer, who had heard him frequently, 
says: "His sermons were logical, direct, a unit in 
thought and enriched with a copious vocabulary and 
illustrations. His points were usually put from the 
Chinese point of view, so that a foreign air was con- 
spicuously absent." To this day some of his addresses 
are recalled as triumphs of real eloquence of speech; 
perhaps the most notable of these being an address 
which he delivered at the opening of the English 
Baptist Institution at Tsinan fu, in 1907. It was an 
opportunity such as never before had come to a 
missionary in Shantung, — all the highest ofhcials 



CARE OF NATIVE CHRISTIANS 183 

of the province, and half-a-hundred others of lesser 
degree, being present. He took as his theme "The 
Importance of an Upright Character," and more than 
rose to the height of the occasion. One of his most 
memorable sermons was delivered before a convention 
of some three hundred women gathered at Wei Hsien 
from the native church members of that region. 

His ministry at Tengchow was fruitful of great 
good in many ways. One of these was the growth 
of the church by the conversion of the natives. Just 
before he removed to Wei Hsien, he recorded the fact 
that during all his pastorate there had not been one 
of the quarterly communions at which there were no 
additions. The beginning of his pastorate was sig- 
nalized by the accession of eighteen, — eight being 
from the college and six from the girls' school. Its 
close was marked by an accession of twenty-six, of 
whom twenty-one were baptized, the largest number 
up to that date ever receiving that sacrament, at the 
same time, in the Tengchow church. Only one was 
from the college, all the rest having come in through 
the labors of two associates in the station. Miss Snod- 
grass and Dr. Seymour. 

Just as soon as by evangehstic itineration and other 
means converts were made in the neighboring region, 
outside of Tengchow, it became necessary for the 
missionaries to look after these scattered sheep in the 
wilderness; and for a good while a large share of that 
work fell to Dr. Mateer and his wife. In fact, it 
had been partly through their labors, direct or indirect, 



184 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

that these converts had been won, and therefore they 
felt it especially a duty to care for their nurture. 
That, of course, involved a large variety of efforts. 
In the earlier years these frequently consisted in part 
of interposition, so far as it was wise and practicable 
to shield native Christians from gross wrongs to 
which they were exposed. The hatred of the rulers 
and of most of the people for foreigners and the 
foreign reKgion was bitter. Even at Tengchow the 
very tombstones in the little cemetery where the 
missionaries buried their dead were repeatedly broken, 
— an act regarded by the Chinese as the most gross 
and cowardly insult that can be offered to a living 
man; yet it was slow work to secure from the officials 
protection, or justice as to the criminals. The case 
of Miao, of Chow Yuen, a district capital situated 
fifty miles to the southwest of Tengchow, is specially 
notable. Early in 1869 the Mateers and Margaret 
Brown, with a Chinese assistant, went to itinerate, 
and on the way they visited him. When converted 
out in his native district of Tsi Hea, he immediately 
began to endeavor to win others to Christ. So he 
sent word to his clansmen and friends that he had 
important business with them, and invited them to 
come to his house. This occurred while the mis- 
sionaries were there, and they witnessed what took 
place at the gathering. ' Miao made a reception 
speech, in which he said: ^'I have sent for you, and 
you have come. I said nothing in my letter, but for 
you to come, and that I had an important matter to 



CARE OF NATIVE CHRISTIANS 185 

tell you. It is this: I have led you in serving the 
Devil. There was nothing I would not dare to do, and 
nothing that you would not care to follow me in doing. 
I have now found something better. We have often 
engaged in doubtful enterprises. I have now found 
something that there is no doubt about: it is 
thoroughly reliable, resting on the strongest possible 
proof. I have left the service of the Devil, and I want 
you to leave it. As I have led you in his service, 
I want now to lead you out of it. I want to show you 
the way and to present you to the true God. Ex- 
amine for yourselves; search to the bottom; and know 
that I am not deceiving myseK nor you. This doc- 
trine of Jesus is absolute and unmistakable truth." 
In writing of this, Dr. Mateer adds: "These words 
were spoken with a fervor and an emphasis that 
brought tears to my eyes. I thanked God for them, 
while I prayed that they might not be in vain. Rice 
was then brought, and this young Christian sat down 
with his friends and asked a blessing, — the first they 
had ever heard, — ^praying for them directly and 
specifically. The whole village came to hear, with 
many from neighboring villages. Save the time 
occupied in eating, we preached to them nearly all 
day, keeping it up till far into the night. The ladies 
also had crowds to hear them all the time." It was 
not long until Miao, partly of himself and partly at 
the instigation of other native Christians, came to 
Chow Yuen, with the determination to establish 
himself there as a preacher of his new faith. In 



186 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

August of the same year the Mateers again visited 
him, this time at his new place of residence, and did 
what they could to help him in his chosen work. 
His education and character were such as to promise 
well. Following the usual custom of a Chinaman 
when about to start a new enterprise, a feast was 
made; some eighteen guests responded favorably to 
invitations to be present, and at the close of the 
entertainment a sort of meeting was held, and Dr. 
Mateer made a brief statement of what Christianity 
is, what was the nature of this enterprise, and what 
was Miao's relation to it. He told the audience that 
the mission would pay the rental of a small chapel, 
but that Miao would work gratuitously, except so 
far as he might be assisted by the voluntary contri- 
butions of his friends. All the Chinese present, with 
the exception of two members from the Tengchow 
church, were non-Christians, yet the guests sub- 
scribed a sum sufficient to meet the expenses of the 
feast and to leave a surplus to go toward the support 
of the preacher. Some of his friends had already 
promised to help to support him, and had presented 
him with a fine signboard to hang in front of the room 
he occupied as his chapel, and another for the back 
of the stand where he stood when speaking. All 
this was so exceptional and so hopeful that Dr. 
Mateer came away rejoicing in this apparent readiness 
even of the unevangelized to welcome the gospel. But 
here begins quite another turn of the story. Miao 
had continued but a few days at this work when a 



CARE OF NATIVE CHRISTIANS 187 

couple of constables seized him and the man from 
whom he had rented the room for a chapel, and 
hurried them to the office of the magistrate. The 
owner was accused of having rented a house to 
''foreign devils," and was forthwith beaten most 
cruelly to the extent, of two hundred blows. Miao 
was then called, charged with evil doctrines and 
practices, such as kneeling in prayer and calling on 
unseen personages. In reply he rehearsed the chief 
truths of the gospel, and in answer to a taunting 
question, whether Jesus could suffer for him, he said 
that he so believed. The magistrate ordered him to 
be beaten fifty blows with the large bamboo and sent 
him chained to prison. That evening he had a second 
hearing, and the next morning he was marched off, 
with a chain about his neck and his hands bound 
together, thirty miles away to Tsi Hea, but comforting 
himself in his weariness and suffering by singing 
Christian hymns. The morning after his arrival 
he was called before the magistrate and confronted 
with charges forwarded from Chow Yuen — such as 
being in league with foreign devils, using false pre- 
tense of preaching religion, seducing the people by 
artful works, being possessed of secret magical arts, 
taking forcible possession of a house, influencing the 
people to form combinations dangerous to the state, 
and a whole rigmarole of offenses, big and little. He 
was commanded to confess, and when he would not, 
he was first beaten three hundred blows with the 
small bamboo, and then he received a hundred more 



188 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

in the face. The second day he was recalled, and 
when he still would not confess he was again beaten. 
The magistrate being especially searching in his 
inquiry as to how Christians prayed, and as to what 
they prayed for, Miao as the best explanation he 
could give kneeled and prayed in his presence. At 
this stage of the affair Dr. Mateer, having been in- 
formed of the situation, arrived, and secured a promise 
from the officer that he would go no further until he 
heard from his superiors; and on his return to Teng- 
chow he reported the case to the American consul at 
Chefoo, though with little hope that imder the preva- 
lent policy of the American government anything 
would be done. In an article in "The Presbyterian 
Banner" he said: "I shall not soon forget my feelings 
when I saw this Christian brother with a chain round 
his neck and his body disfigured with bruises for the 
gospel's sake. I could not restrain the tears as I 
looked him in the face. It is one thing to talk of 
persecution a thousand miles away, and another to 
see it face to face. I assured him of our S3nnpathy 
and unceasing prayers in his behalf, and that I would 
do my utmost to rescue him. . . . Numbers of 
the native Christians have boldly visited Miao in 
prison, and some of them even prayed with him. All 
have been stirred up to pray as never before, and made 
to feel that their only hope is that God will interpose 
on their behalf. This young Christian has been 
guilty of no offense against the state. The charges 
preferred by the officers are pure fabrications, the 



CARE OF NATIVE CHRISTIANS 189 

inventions of malice and hatred to the truth, and 
would never have been entertained by the officer 
had he not been only too glad of a pretext to get the 
Christians in his power." So soon as possible Dr. 
Mateer went to Chefoo to see the American consul, 
and on his return home he learned that Miao had 
been released, under some restrictions as to his where- 
abouts; but no amends were made for the gross injus- 
tice done. 

There was still a long sequel to this affair. After 
the period which has since intervened the story seems 
to be im worthy of the dignity of a full recital here; 
though it might be interesting to some as an example 
of obstacles encountered by the work of missions away 
from places where foreign influences are commonly 
powerful enough to prevent them. A condensed 
account must suffice. It should be remembered that 
it was in August that the persecution of Miao occurred. 
The purpose of it, at least in part, was to shut Christi- 
anity out of Chow \uen. To allow this would have 
been to inffict on that cause a blow that probably 
would encourage opposition of a like kind in other 
localities; and therefore it evidently was the duty of 
the missionaries to prevent it if practicable. Espe- 
cially was it true of Dr. Mateer that he was too 
resolute a spirit to yield to such a violation of rights 
secured under treaty with foreign governments. Con- 
sequently late in November he went again to Chow 
Yuen, in order to secure a house that could be used 
as a chapel; for in the interval between these visits 



190 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

the room previously occupied for this purpose had 
gone into other hands and was no longer available. 
The magistrate also had been promoted, and another 
filled his place. Dr. Mateer soon found a house, 
rented it, and secured the approval of the magistrate. 
Then followed a series of chicanery, brutality, deceit, 
low cunning, and petty meanness running over several 
months, and compelling two more trips by him in the 
dead of winter. Once he took with him two other 
missionaries, and they went armed with pistols in 
order to defend themselves if attacked. The old 
woman who rented the room to him, and who in so 
doing had been animated by ill will to her relatives 
and by a desire for money, was seized and beaten 
by members of her own family, and likewise by the 
magistrate. The same gang beat the middleman 
who, according to Chinese custom, had negotiated the 
bargain. The whole rental was only about ten dol- 
lars. Petty and miserable as the affair was, it had 
its ludicrous features; as, for instance, when Dr. 
Mateer, in his determination not to be ousted from 
the house until some satisfactory arrangement was 
made, picked up the old woman and set her down on 
the outside, where she exhausted her strength in 
billingsgate. It was not until the beginning of March 
that the trouble at Chow Yuen was finally ended. 
The issue was a triumph in the main for the mis- 
sionary; another acceptable room was, with the 
official approval of the magistrate, secured for a 
chapel, and the money that had been paid for the 



CARE OF NATIVE CHRISTIANS 191 

rental of the other house was refunded. The best 
of all was the fate that overtook the man who had 
been the ringleader in the long series of wrongdoings 
toward the representatives of Christianity. The 
magistrate did his best to shield this fellow, but at 
last he had to yield. He called the man into his 
presence, and this is what was done, as related by Dr. 
Mateer: ^'He was required to knock head to me; 
and then I took him in hand, and though he tried to 
evade, I compelled him to own up to his sin, and to 
make a distinct promise of amendment; and then the 
substance of what he said was put on record by the 
clerk, and a copy was given me." It all illustrates 
what a determined man who has right on his side 
may accompHsh even in an out-of-the-way city in 
China. It is characteristic of Dr. Mateer that in 
one place in his Journal during this wearisome affair 
he says that if it were not for his school he would go 
to Chow Yuen, and stay there until a settlement is 
reached. Perhaps in later years Dr. Mateer and his 
associates would have regarded it as inexpedient to 
go so far in the defense of a convert; but in those 
earher days this was a battle for toleration of Chris- 
tianity, and not a mere struggle to right the wrongs 
of an individual convert. 

Other incidents of the dark side to the work of 
caring for the native Christians might be given, but 
I have thought it best to turn chiefly to the brighter 
phases of the subject. Of these there were many, 
and they were of many kinds; but they were of so 



192 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

unsensational a character as not now to be likely to 
awaken much interest in the reader. They belong to 
the day of small things for the gospel in China; but 
let them not be despised; by and by they will be 
treasured, if the record of them is preserved, as the 
beginnings of the evangelization of Shantung. When 
they occurred they brought the joy of approaching 
harvest. For example, in connection with that last 
trip out to Chow Yuen, Dr. Mateer wrote: 

As it was Saturday, however, I felt I must try if 
possible to get home, so that the Sabbath service 
should not be neglected, when so many inquirers 
were waiting to hear. I found not only the ten who 
had come from Ping Tu, but some seven or eight 
from other places. I had, of course, to commence 
teaching them at once. I gave the half of each day 
to them, and continued it without interruption for 
three weeks. They gave diligent attention to the 
business of learning. At the same time Mrs. Mateer 
had a class of women who were seeking admission 
to the church. Last week all who were considered 
ready were examined by the session and passed upon. 
Twenty were received, — fifteen men and five women. 
They were all baptized together yesterday. It was 
a new sight in Tengchow, to see such a number stand- 
ing up at once to profess the Lord Jesus Christ. I 
hope that we are all grateful as we should be for such 
a signal token of God's presence with us. Our hearts 
are enlarged to look for still greater things in the 
future. Our schoolroom was packed to its utmost 
capacity, so that when the twenty rose up to present 
themselves for baptism, it was with great difficulty 
that room could be made for them to stand. Let 



CARE OF NATIVE CHRISTIANS 193 

us hope that the day of small things is past in this 
part of China. Chinese officials may persecute us, 
and foreign governments ignore us, but they cannot 
restrain God's Spirit. There are still a number of 
inquirers. 

In the earlier part of his missionary Kf e he frequently 
made trips of greater or less length to various places 
in the province to help the native Christians by 
organizing churches, assisting their pastors, holding 
services, stimulating to work for the gospel, admin- 
istering the sacraments, and in every other available 
manner forwarding the cause of Christianity. Hospi- 
tality was gladly extended by the people; and it was 
as gladly accepted, though not infrequently it intro- 
duced to quarters that were odd and even uncanny. 
Dr. Mateer described guest rooms in which he was 
entertained, and which were a strange combination 
of granary, receptacle for lumber, bedchamber and 
*' parlor," crammed with all sorts of corresponding 
articles, not excepting a coffin conspicuously displayed 
in a corner. However, in his own home he lived 
without ostentation; and on his journeys he did not 
find it hard to adapt himself to the customs of his 
native entertainers. 

In later years, though for the most part he left 
itinerations to the yoimger members of the mission, 
yet he did not entirely discontinue them. In Febru- 
ary, 1896, for instance, he wrote to the secretaries 
of the Board of Missions: 



13 



194 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

Three weeks ago Mrs. Mateer and I returned from 
a trip of seventeen days to the district of Lai Chow, 
eighty miles distant. Our friends protested against 
our taking such a trip in the winter and in our state 
of health. We acted on our own judgment, however, 
and went, and are benefited rather than otherwise. 
The trip was exceedingly profitable. We confined 
our visit to two stations, holding special services each 
day — morning, afternoon and night. I received eight 
to the church. At one station a new church was 
organized, with twenty-six members, a branch from 
the older station. At this older station there are 
many inquirers, and the work is in a very hopeful 
conchtion, very largely as the result of the influence 
of a young man, an undergraduate of the college, 
who has been there teaching a day school for three 
years. 

One of his last journeys of this sort was made not 
long before his seventieth birthday, and the following 
is his record concerning it : 

From Tengchow we came overland to Wei Hsien 
in shentzas. I made it a point to spend the Sabbath 
at Lai Chow fu, and went out and preached morning 
and afternoon to our little church at Ning Kie, which 
is three miles from the city. Dr. Mills and I were 
instrumental in founding the station some thirty-six 
years ago. It has grown very slowly. Mrs. Mateer 
had visited it frequently in subsequent years, and had 
taught the women, and there are now a goodly pro- 
portion of women in the church. In the earlier years 
evangehsts were sent to labor in the region, and to 
preach to and teach the people. In those days oppo- 
sition to the gospel was very great, and progress was 



CARE OF NATIVE CHRISTIANS 195 

very slow. In later years, owing to change of policy, 
evangelists were not sent, save on an occasional visit, 
and the church dechned, though it still Kved. A few 
years ago special efforts were made, and the church 
increased somewhat, and finally a native pastor was 
settled over this church, in connection with another 
about fifteen miles away. Before the expiration of 
the first year the Boxer uprising brought the arrest 
and beating of the pastor and much persecution to the 
church. The pastor did not return. The church was 
discouraged, and the pastor was called elsewhere. 
If we now had an available man, he could be located 
at Lai Chow fu; but there is no man. 

His last country trip was made some time in De- 
cember, 1907. This is the record: "Two weeks ago 
I went down on the railroad to Kiaochow to assist 
our native pastors in a meeting for the women. There 
were about seventy there from various other stations, 
besides those in town. The meeting was most inter- 
esting, and must do a great deal of good. It was 
projected and managed by the native pastors on 
their own account. There were five native pastors 
present, and helping in the meeting. Many women 
spoke and some made set addresses." There were 
approximately one himdred and fifty present, many 
of whom walked miles to be there. His own speech 
was a plea to the mothers to consecrate their sons to 
the ministry, and the tears ran down his cheeks as, 
while making it, he spoke of his own mother. 

The reader needs to bear in mind that Dr. Mateer 
did not operate as an independent individual, but as 



196 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

the agent of a thoroughly organized system, in con- 
formity with the government of the Presbyterian 
Church and the regulations of the Board of Missions. 
Of these agencies there is one that lies wholly outside 
the constitutional provisions of the denomination, but 
that is approved as a part of the machinery needed 
for the foreign field. This is what is called the ''mis- 
sion." Its members are the missionaries sent out 
by the Board and residing near enough to meet to- 
gether for the transaction of business. To the mis- 
sion belong such duties as to locate members and 
appoint their work, to make annual estimates of 
funds and reenforcements needed, to receive the money 
from the Board, and to apply it, according to direc- 
tions, general or specific. Dr. Mateer had much to 
do with inaugurating the ''executive committees" 
now so widely adopted by the missions. Many 
questions affecting the operations sustained through 
the Board, of necessity came before the annual 
mission meeting for discussion and action. Lines 
of poKcy as to conduct of the work out in the field, 
if involving important features, are left for decision 
to the Board; but full and frank consideration of 
them by the members of the missions, either when in 
session or as individuals, is usually welcomed. 

An important discussion in which Dr. Nevius and 
Dr. Mateer were especially conspicuous arose on their 
field over a theory advanced by Dr. Nevius in his 
^'Methods of Missions." It was no personal contro- 
versy, though, of course, the respective personalities 



CARE OF NATIVE CHRISTIANS 197 

of two such strong, positive, earnest men inevitably 
tinged it. The question at issue mainly concerned 
the pecuniary support of native Christians as agents 
in the evangeHzation of their own people. No attempt 
need here be made to state with fullness the positions 
taken or the arguments employed. Broadly, the 
policy advocated by Dr. Nevius was that the main 
work of evangelization should be thrown on the native 
Christians, and that those who could read and under- 
stand "the doctrine" should voluntarily and without 
compensation instruct those who could not; while 
the foreign missionaries, paid as heretofore by the 
Board, should give themselves to a general superin- 
tendence and to periodical examinations of the 
catechumens and scholars taught by the native church 
members. Dr. Mateer was just as earnestly as Dr. 
Nevius in favor of utiHzing native Christians in the 
evangelization of their people, and was just as eager 
to develop among them self-support, but he was 
thoroughly convinced that conditions were not ripe 
in China for the radical policy of withholding from 
native laborers, as a rule, all pay from the funds of 
the Board; and that an attempt of this sort before 
the proper time would result in serious disaster. 
This brief statement will suffice to show that it was 
a question over which wise and good men might 
readily differ, and that the fact that they discussed it 
earnestly and fully is a sign of healthy Kfe. It seems 
to me to be a problem that cannot be satisfactorily 
solved by theoretical argument, or by votes in a 



198 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

mission, or by even the decision of a board. The 
only crucial test is actual trial. All that needs to be 
said further as to this discussion is, on the one hand, 
to emphasize the fact that Dr. Mateer, in his care 
of the native Christians and churches, often labored 
hard and long to bring up congregations, in the sup- 
port of their pastors and evangeHsts, to the measure 
of giving for which they were able; and, on the other 
hand, that he thought he saw in certain fields evidence 
of the bad consequences of the policy he controverted. 
Until it is desirable to organize the churches of a 
given foreign missionary field, after the order pre- 
scribed by the Presbyterian form of government, 
the mission must continue in the entire supervision; 
but it is the practice, just as soon as the way is open, 
to set up presbyteries and s3niods, and to commit to 
them those matters which belong to their jurisdiction. 
In these bodies ruling elders, as the official lay repre- 
sentatives of the native churches, and all the native 
ordained ministers sit as the equals in authority with 
the ordained foreign ministers. The Board, unless in 
exceptional cases, has not been accustomed to turn 
over to them the administration of the funds forwarded 
for use on the field, or such matters as concern the 
policy and plans it adopts; but all that pertains to 
the organization of churches, the settlement of pas- 
tors, the acceptance of candidates for the ministry 
and their licensure and ordination, and the administra- 
tion of discipline for the ministers, with complaints 
and appeals from the churches, is left to the presby- 



CARE OF NATIVE CHRISTIANS 199 

tery. Of course, as converts and churches and native 
ministers increase, the tendency is to put them, as 
the majority, in control in these bodies. It is a system 
which opens the way for some dangers ; nevertheless 
it is, in the nature of the situation, the only course to 
pursue, and unless abused, it has a most wholesome 
influence on the native Christians. It brings home 
to them the fact that, equally with the foreigners who 
have given them the gospel, they have privileges as 
members of the church of Christ, and also their 
responsibihty as such. Dr. Mateer beHeved with all 
his heart in the setting up of these regular ecclesiastical 
bodies so soon as possible. Late in November, 1865, 
he was one of the Kttle band who organized the 
Presbytery of Shantung, at a meeting held at Chefoo, 
when as yet there were no native ministers to take 
part. The next meeting was held the following 
October at Tengchow, and he was elected moderator 
and stated clerk. It is evident that if a presbytery 
is to be of any considerable value to a native member 
the language used must be his own, not that of the 
foreign missionary. With this understanding, the 
following from Dr. Mateer^s Journal concerning that 
meeting can be better appreciated: ''It was voted 
that hereafter all the proceedings be in Chinese, and 
at it we went. It was very awkward at first, making 
and putting motions, but after some practice we got 
along better. We had a very pleasant meeting 
indeed. One of the chief items of business was a 
caU presented by the native church for Mr. Mills, 



200 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

which he accepted, and we arranged for his installa- 
tion." 

It was ten years before such progress had been made 
out in the province that it was practicable to hold a 
presbytery in the rural regions. In a letter to his 
mother, dated December 24, 1877, Dr. Mateer said: 
''The meeting of the presbytery in the country marks 
an era in our progress in Shantimg. Many of the 
Christians from all the region were assembled, and 
e\ddently got much good from what they saw and 
heard. Our presbyter^^ is getting to be an important 
event, and a power among the native churches. Our 
desire is that it may be more and more felt." Some- 
times the meetings were saddened by the cases of 
discipline, after a native ministry began to be enrolled; 
but if the case demanded it, even deposition from the 
sacred office and excommimication from the church 
w^ere imposed, and the native elders and ministers 
were sturdy supporters of adequate sentences. In 
contrast with this was the joy of recei\iQg candidates 
for the ministry, and sending them out to preach the 
gospel as they seemed to be ready for that work. 
Occasionally a man up in years, and without thorough 
education, but apparently qualified to be effective 
as a preacher, is authorized by the presbytery to 
"exercise his gifts"; but usually those who offer 
themselves are young men who after long courses of 
study, and careful examination, are sent on this errand. 
For instance, in his report for 1874 as stated clerk, 
Dr. Mateer said: 



CARE OF NATIVE CHRISTIANS 201 

Considerable time was taken up in the presbytery 
by the examination of candidates for the ministry. 
These were thorough, and so far as they went were 
sustained with great credit. One candidate was 
Hcensed to preach. He is not yoimg, as Hcentiates 
usually are, being about sixty. He is, however, full 
of zeal for God, and may yet do good service. One 
of our licentiates was ordained as an evangehst. This 
is the first native preacher who has been ordained 
by this presbytery. It marks a new step in our work, 
one for which we are devoutly thankful to God. We 
have no more important work to do than to raise 
up well-qualified natives to preach the gospel to their 
countrymen. We trust this one will soon be followed 
by others. 

Dr. Mateer was careful to treat the native elders 
and ministers as the equals of the foreign missionaries, 
in the ecclesiastical bodies and elsewhere; and as a 
consequence he commanded their confidence, so that 
he was able sometimes to render important services 
by heaHng threatened dissensions. This, as might 
be supposed, was especially true of his own ^'boys," 
who had as students learned to revere both his judg- 
ment and his fraternal spirit. 

In writing to ''The Presbyterian Banner '^ concern- 
ing the meeting of the Presbytery of Shantung, in 
September, 1869, he said: ''The matter of the forma- 
tion of a synod in China was discussed, and a circular 
letter was prepared, and ordered to be sent to the 
other presbyteries urging the propriety of such a 
step at once. It is now twenty years since the 
General Assembly took action looking toward and 



202 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

opening the way for the formation of this S3niod." 
That body held its first meeting at Shanghai in Oc- 
tober of the following year. The synod in the Presby- 
terian system is the next higher organization above 
the presbytery, and consists of all the ordained minis- 
ters of a larger district already containing three or 
more presbyteries, and of ruling elders representing 
the churches; or it may be constituted from delegates 
appointed by the presbyteries on a fixed basis. It 
has the right to review all presbyterial action, and 
also has authority to originate measures within its 
constitutional jurisdiction. Among the missionaries 
in China at that time there was a considerable num- 
ber who regarded the synod as a sort of fifth wheel 
to the coach, and as not likely to be capable of render- 
ing a service worth its cost in money and time. Under 
indirect form this phase of the subject came into 
warm and protracted debate in that first meeting, 
and may be said to have been fought out to a settle- 
ment. Dr. Mateer was a strong believer in the im- 
portance of the synod, and in debate, and in other 
ways, he threw the whole weight of his influence 
avowedly on that side of the issue, and helped to win. 
Other problems were of such a character as also to 
arouse his interest to a high degree. Ought the 
language used in the body to be limited to the Man- 
darin or ought it to include local dialects? On this 
question, of course, he stood for the Mandarin. 
Ought a theological institution to be established; 
and if so, where? As to this, a sort of compromise 



CARE OF NATIVE CHRISTIANS 203 

was effected, and an appeal was sent home for a 
share in the ''Memorial Fund," to establish in China 
one or more such schools, but leaving location to be 
determined later. The synod consisted of twenty- 
four members, ten of them being foreign missionaries, 
and fourteen native pastors and elders. The pro- 
ceedings had to be translated, during the various 
sessions, into several different dialects, in order to be 
made intelligible to all. The body sat for ten days, 
and then adjourned to assemble the next year at 
Ningpo. It was in connection with Dr. Mateer's 
attendance at Shanghai that he was induced to take 
temporary charge of the mission press. 

The second meeting of the synod was held at 
Ningpo. Dr. Mateer was chosen moderator. Writ- 
ing in his Journal concerning that meeting, he said: 

The great difficulty of the synod was the language, 
and this was indeed no small embarrassment. As I 
was moderator, I felt it more than any other. It was 
all I could do to tell what was going on at times. If 
it had not been for the practice I had through the 
summer in Shanghai, I should have been quite lost. 
The most interesting discussion we had was on the 
quahfications of candidates for the ministry. The 
native members insisted that they must learn Eng- 
lish, and the foreign members opposed. The native 
brethren finally carried their point. The discussion 
at some points of its progress was reaUy exciting, and 
not a little amusing. 

The next meeting was held at Chefoo, and as the 
retiring moderator he preached the opening sermon. 



204 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

In his Journal he says: ''I had prepared the sermon 
quite carefully, having written it all out, and so had 
to read it. It is the only sermon I ever wrote out 
fully in Chinese. I found reading a Chinese sermon 
very awkward and embarrassing." A committee of 
which he was a member had been appointed by the 
preceding meeting at Ningpo to prepare for deHber- 
ative bodies a compendium of technical terms, — for 
the lack of which in Chinese they had been seriously 
hindered, — and also to formulate rules of order. They 
made a report which was approved, and authorized for 
use in the synod and in the presbyteries. 

One other excerpt from the records of his pen must 
conclude the story of his work in the synod, though it 
was continued down through his subsequent years. 
He said: 

Delegates, officially deputed, were present from the 
mission of the Presbyterian Church South; also from 
the mission of the United Presbyterian Church in 
Scotland; and from the independent Presbytery of 
Amoy, composed of the missions of the American 
Dutch Reformed and the English Presbyterian 
Chiurches combined. They all expressed a desire 
for mutual cooperation, and for the ultimate luiion 
of all the Presbyterians in China into one Chinese 
Presbyterian Church. A committee was appointed 
to correspond with the various Presbyterian bodies 
or missions in China, and prepare the way for an ulti- 
mate union. This union may not be accompHshed 
for many years, but that it should come as soon as 
practicable seems to be the almost unanimous opinion 
of all concerned. 



CARE OF NATIVE CHRISTIANS 205 

In 1907 one long advance was made toward the 
realization of the desire so earnestly expressed by that 
synod a third of a century before. After preliminary 
consultations extending over a number of years, 
representatives of eight distinct missions, operated 
by as many different Presbyterian denominations 
of Europe and America, met together, and constituted 
'^The Presbyterian Church of China," and also offered 
a welcome to any other Chinese churches of like faith 
and practice to unite with them. Dr. Mateer thought 
that on account of the size of China and the conse- 
quent expense of travel and variety of speech, it 
would be better to make two ecclesiastical bodies 
out of this material. Belonging to the new organiza- 
tion, there were, besides the foreign missionaries, 
about a hundred native ministers, and forty thousand 
communicants. Dr. Mateer was not a member of 
the body which met to declare and organize this 
union; but, being present, he was invited to sit as 
a corresponding member. Under the regulations of 
his American denomination, the names of ordained 
foreign missionaries entering such new chmrches on 
the foreign field as that just mentioned are enrolled 
in the minutes of the home General Assembly on a 
separate list; and these ministers are entitled to be 
received by the presbyteries without the examina- 
tion required of those who come from other denomina- 
tions in foreign countries. This was the ecclesias- 
tical status of Dr. Mateer when he died. He was a 



206 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

member of the Presbyterian Church in China; but he 
was still enrolled by the church of his fathers. 

The highest of all the organizations within the 
Presbyterian system is the General Assembly. Its 
supervision, within constitutional Hmits, extends over 
synods, presbyteries, and individual ministers and 
churches, and it has other distinct functions pertaining 
to the entire denomination throughout the world. 
Dr. Mateer was a commissioner from his presbytery 
in China to the Assembly which met in 1880 in New 
York; and again to the Assembly which met in Los 
Angeles in 1903. In this last he was nominated for 
moderator, but failed of election, for reasons not in 
any way disparaging to him. It is well understood 
that an election to that office is contingent on so many 
incidental things that the choice can seldom be fore- 
seen. Local influences at Los Angeles were strongly 
thrown in favor of the successful candidate, meaning 
by these the representation in the Assembly and the 
Presbyterian visitors from all the Rocky Mountain 
country and from the Pacific coast. Besides, to 
many of the commissioners Dr. Mateer was a man but 
slightly known. His work had been great, but it 
had also been quiet. Nor when on his furloughs had 
he in speaking to the churches won renown by bursts 
of missionary eloquence. He made a very creditable 
run for the moderator ship, and was beaten by a man 
of high standing in the church. He was appointed 
chairman of the Judicial Committee. 



XI 

THE SHANTUNG COLLEGE 

"WMle I live I cannot cease to have a vital interest in the 
college. ... I cannot bear to be wholly away from the 
coUege to which my life has been given," — letter to secre- 
tary BROWN, April I o, 1907. 

THE change of the name of the school which 
Dr. Mateer had founded and nurtured for 
nearly two decades was made at the formal 
request of the members of the Shantung Presbyterian 
Mission, sent to the Board imder date of February 
14, 188 1. It was accompanied by a "plan," and 
that part of the paper was as follows: 

I. That the Tengchow Boys' High School be or- 
ganized into and constituted a college, to be called 
"The CoUege of Shantung." 

II. That it be carried on and governed by a board 
of six trustees nominated by the Shantung Mission, 
and confirmed by the Board of Foreign Missions. 

III. That the college embrace a six years' course 
of study in Chinese classics, general science, and 
Christian ethics; including particularly "The Four 
Books" and "Five Classics," Chinese history, with 
BibHcal and general history, mathematics, physical, 
mental and moral sciences, evidences of Christianity, 
and so forth. 

IV. That the aim of the college be to educate thor- 
oughly both in Chinese and western learning; and 

207 



208 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

to do this from the standpoint and under the in- 
fluence of Christianity. 

V. That the Chinese language be the medium of 
instruction throughout the course, EngHsh being 
taught only as an extra in special cases. 

VI. That there be connected with the college a 
department to prepare pupils to enter it. 

VII. That it be the ultimate design to make the 
students attending the college self-supporting; and 
that in order to do this the style of hving be strictly 
on the Chinese plane; and that natives be trained as 
fast as possible to man the college with efficient 
professors. 

VIII. That the college be located for the present 
at Tengchow, leaving open the question of its removal 
to a more central position at some future time. 

For this request the main reasons were added 
in extenso. They are too long to be given here; but 
they can be, in the main, compressed into two general 
statements. One of these was the need of a high- 
grade institution of this sort in northern China, and 
especially in the great province of Shantung. It 
was conceded that Tengchow was not as central a 
location as the college might ultimately require; 
but, being a literary city and a treaty port, and as 
yet free from the special temptations and corrupting 
influences of a mixed foreign population, it at least 
temporarily had marked advantages. The other 
general statement is that the institution was already 
in fact a college by reason of its curriculum, and was 
equipped with buildings and outfit suitable for the 
advanced work which a coflege ought to do. In order 



THE SHANTUNG COLLEGE 209 

that it might retain the position it had won, and in 
order to secure endowment and reputation, the new 
name was very desirable. 

Li a letter dated April 4, 1885, the mission appealed 
to the Board for a new house to be built for the 
accommodation of the chief foreign assistant in the 
college, and incidentally gave a statement as to the 
plant. They said: "At a remarkably small cost to 
the Board it has come into possession of plain but 
extensive premises, which are very well adapted to 
the purpose. With the small additions and changes 
proposed for the current year it will have good 
boarding and dormitory accommodations for eighty 
or ninety pupils, with roomy yards and courts. It 
has also two large schoolrooms, three recitation 
rooms, one large lecture room, a philosophical ap- 
paratus room, a chemical apparatus room with a 
shop and storeroom. It has also a substantial 
stone observatory, costmg one hundred and sixty 
dollars." In 1894, a grant for new buildings having 
been made by the Board, steps looking to their erec- 
tion were taken. Writing of these, March 23, 1895, 
Dr. Mateer said, "We staked off the ground to-day, 
and will make a start at once." That year, however, 
on account of his duties on the committee for the 
revision of the Mandarin translation of the Scrip- 
tures, he laid down the presidency of the college, 
though he did not cease to assist in the instruction 
and in the management of it. February 8, 1896, 
he wrote to the Board: "The headship of the college 
14 



210 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

is now in Mr. Hayes's hands, and with it the major 
part of the work. I am especially thankful that the 
interests of the college are in the hands of a capable 
man; nevertheless, when I am in Tengchow a con- 
siderable share of the general responsibility still 
chngs to me, and no inconsiderable share of the work, 
and Mrs. Mateer's share is in nowise decreased. 
Our new buildings are finished, and are an unspeak- 
able convenience. The wonder is how we did without 
them so long. They have served to raise our college 
in the estimate of the people of the whole city." 
These new buildings consisted of a main edifice of 
two stories, dormitories, and chemical laboratory. 
The old temple structure was converted into a chapel 
and various alterations were nade as to uses of the 
smaller houses. The original estimate of the outlay 
was eight thousand dollars. Whether this sum was 
sufficient is not stated in any of the records that have 
come into my hands; but inasmuch as nothing is 
said about a deficit, it is probable that there was 
none, except such as Dr. Mateer and others on the 
ground met out of their own pockets. The new 
buildings were suppHed with steam heat and electric 
fight from a house specially fitted for the purpose, 
with a taU chimney that seemed as if a landmark for 
all the region; and some other additions were sub- 
sequently made by means of special contributions. 
Taken altogether, the plant, into the possession of 
which the Tengchow College eventually came, though 
consisting largely of houses that were externally with- 



THE SHANTUNG COLLEGE 211 

out architectural pretension, and in part of the Chinese 
order and somewhat inadequate, was extensive enough 
to indicate the magnitude of the work the institution 
was doing. 

One of the things on which the members of the 
mission laid stress in their request for the elevation 
of the school to the rank and title of a college was 
that it already had "a good collection of philosophi- 
cal and chemical apparatus, beheved to be the largest 
and best- assorted collection in China." Dr. Mateer 
also was accustomed to speak of this apparatus 
with a pride that was an expression, not of vanity, 
but of satisfaction in a personal achievement, that 
was eminently worth while. For instance, in his 
letter to his college classmates in 1897, he said: 
*'I have given some time and considerable thought 
and money to the making of philosophical apparatus. 
I had a natural taste in this direction, and I saw 
that in China the thing to push in education was 
physical science. We now have as good an outfit 
of apparatus as the average college in the United 
States, — more than twice as much as Jefferson had 
when we graduated; two- thirds of it made on the 
groimd at my own expense." It was a slow, long 
job to produce it. Early in his career as a teacher 
in the Tengchow school he had Kttle need of apparatus 
because the pupils were not of a grade to receive 
instruction in physics; but it was not very long 
until he recorded his difficulty, for instance, in teach- 
ing pneumatics without an air pump. Some of his 



212 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

instruction at that general period was given to a 
class of students for the ministry. He was always 
careful to let it be known that his school was in 
no degree a theological seminary; he held it to be 
vital to have it understood that it was an institution 
for what we would call secular instruction, though 
saturated through and through with Christianity. 
But again and again throughout his life he took his 
share in teaching native candidates for the ministry; 
and before the college proper afforded them oppor- 
tiuiity to study western science he was accustomed 
to initiate these young men into enough knowledge 
of the workings of nature to fit them to be better 
leaders among their own people. Thus, writing in 
his Journal, February, 1874, concerning his work with 
the theological class that winter, he said: 

I heard them a lesson every day, — one day in 
philosophy [physics] and the next in chemistry. I 
went thus over optics and mechanics, and reviewed 
electricity, and went through the volume on chemistry. 
I practically gave all my time to the business of 
teaching and experimenting, and getting apparatus. 
I had carpenters and tinners at work a good part of 
the time. I got up most of the things needed for 
illustrating mechanics, and a number in optics; 
also completed my set of fixtures for frictional elec- 
tricity, and added a good number of articles to my 
set of galvanic apparatus. With my new battery 
I showed the electrical light and the deflagration of 
metals very well. The Ruhmkorff coil performed 
very well indeed, and made a fine display. I had 
an exhibition of two nights with the magic lantern. 



THE SHANTUNG COLLEGE 213 

using the oxy hydrogen Kght. In chemistry I made all 
the gases and more than are described in the book, 
and experimented on them fully. They gave me 
no small amount of trouble, but I succeeded with 
them all very well. I made both Hght and heavy 
carbureted hydrogen, and experimented with them. 
Then I made coal gas enough to Hght up the room 
through the whole evening. Altogether I have made 
for the students a fuller course of experiments in 
philosophy or chemistry than I saw myseh. They 
studied well and appreciated very much what they 
saw. I trust the issue will prove that my time 
has not been misspent. I have learned a great 
deal myseK, especially in the practical part of ex- 
periment-making. It may be that I may yet have 
occasion to turn this knowledge to good account. 
I have also gathered in all a very good set of appara- 
tus, which I shall try to make further use of. 

It was in this way that the collection was begun. 
As he added to it in succeeding years, every piece 
had a history that lent it an individual interest. 
Much of it continued to be produced by his own 
hand, or at least under his own superintendence, 
and at the expense of himself, or of his friends, who 
at his soHcitation contributed money for this use. 
Some of the larger and more costly articles were 
donated by people to whom he appealed for help, 
and therefore peculiar personal associations clustered 
about them. For instance, when home on his first fur- 
lough, he met Cyrus W. Field, on a voyage to Europe, 
and interested him in the Tengchow School. After 
reaching China again, he wrote a letter to Mr. Field 



214 CALVIX WILSON MATEER 

and solicited from him the gift of a d}TLamo. In 
the course of some months a favorable response was 
received; and, eventually, that d}TLamo rendered 
most valuable service in lighting the buildings. Two 
friends, whose acquaintance he had made in the 
United States, — ^h. Stuart, of Xew York, and Mrs. 
Baird, of Philadelphia, — gave him money to buy a 
ten-inch reflecting telescope, vdih proper moimtings 
and accompaniments; and when, as so often happens 
in such matters, there was a considerable dehcit, 
his "Uncle John'' came to the reHef. In ordering 
through an acquaintance a set of telegraph instru- 
ments he explained that the Board was not furnish- 
ing the means to pay for it. but that it was pur- 
chased with his own money, supplemented by the 
gifts of certain friends of missions and education. 

This must suffice as to the histor\' of that collection 
of apparatus. It is. however, enough to show why 
he had so much pride in it. 

It was in 1895 that he laid down the headship 
of the college. He took this step all the more readily 
because in his successor. Rev. W. IM. Hayes, 
now of Tsmgchow fu, he had entire confidence as 
to both character and abihty. On his arrival in 
China Mr. Hayes was immediately associated with 
Dr. Mateer in the school, and showed himseK to be 
a thoroughly kindred spirit. He continued at the 
head of the college imtil 1901, when he resigned 
his position in order to start for the governor of the 
province a new coUege at Tsinan fu. It may not 



THE SHANTUNG COLLEGE 215 

be out of place to add here that the governor at that 
time was Yuan Shih K'ai, a man of large and 
liberal views, and that there was, as to the new college 
he was founding, in the requirements nothing that 
made it improper for a Christian and a minister of 
the gospel to be at the head of it. It is due to 
Mr. Hayes to say that in accepting this position 
he was confident that he had the approval of nearly 
all the missionaries associated with him. However, 
it was not very long imtil Yuan was transferred to 
the viceroyalty of the province of Chi-li, which 
dominates Peking, and a successor took his place 
in Shantung, who was of a different mind, and who 
introduced such usages into the new institution that 
Mr. Hayes felt conscientiously bound to lay down 
his office. He is now one of the instructors in the 
theological department of the Shantung Christian 
University, into which the college at Tengchow has 
been merged. 

In the request of the members of the mission for 
the elevation of the Tengchow school to the rank 
and title of a college one of the articles specifically 
left the ultimate location of the institution an open 
question. The main objection to Tengchow was 
its isolation. It is away up on the coast of the 
peninsula that constitutes the eastern end of the 
province, and it is cut off from the interior by a 
range of rather rugged hills in the rear. Though a 
treaty port, its commerce by sea has long been in- 
considerable, and gives no promise of increase. At 



216 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

the time when that request was made, it is Hkely 
that some, though signing, would have preferred 
that the college should be removed down to Chefoo. 
To any project of that sort Dr. Mateer was inflexibly, 
and with good reason, opposed; and it never assumed 
such strength as to give him much apprehension. 
Along in the later "eighties" and in the early "nine- 
ties" the question of location again arose in connec- 
tion with the Anglo-Chinese college which Dr. A. 
P. Happer, of the Presbyterian missions in China, 
imdertook to foimd. He progressed so far as to raise 
a considerable sum of money for endowment and had 
a board appointed for the control. The project at 
no stage received the hearty support of Dr. Mateer, 
though, of course, so long as it did not threaten hurt 
to his own college or the ideas which it represented 
he did not make any fight against it. Dr. Happer 
had long been a missionary in southern China, and 
was beyond question earnestly devoted to his work; 
his idea was that by means of the Anglo-Chinese 
college he would raise up an efficient native ministry 
for the churches. The conviction of Dr. Mateer 
was that, so far as this result is concerned, the in- 
stitution, by the very nature of the plan, must be 
a comparative failure. English was to be given a 
large place in the curriculum, and for students it 
was to draw especially on such as could pay their 
own way. In a long letter dated March i8, 1887, 
called out by the question of the location of the 
proposed college, and signed by Dr. Mateer and 



THE SHANTUNG COLLEGE 217 

Mr. Hayes, they frankly expressed to one of the 
secretaries of the Board their reasons for believing so 
strongly that an institution conducted on the plan 
proposed could not realize the main object which 
its founder sought. They had found it necessary 
years before, in the Tengchow College, to meet the 
question as to the introduction of English, and the 
decision was in favor of using Chinese alone in the 
curriculum ; and so long as the school remained in charge 
of Mateer and Hayes, they rigidly excluded their own 
native tongue. When the Tengchow school was 
just emerging into the Tengchow College, Dr. Mateer 
thus expressed his convictions on that subject: 

If we should teach English, and on this account 
seek the patronage of the officers and the rich, no 
doubt we could get some help and countenance. We 
would be compelled, however, to give up in good 
measure the distinctively religious character of the 
school. We would get a different class of pupils, 
and the religious tone of the school would soon be 
changed in spite of us. Another result would also 
be almost inevitable, namely, the standard of Chinese 
scholarship would fall. The study of English is 
fatal to high acquisition in the Chinese classics. We 
would doubtless have great trouble in keeping our 
pupils after they were able to talk English; they 
would at once go seeking employment where their 
English would bring them good wages. Tengchow, 
moreover, is not a port of foreign residents, but 
rather an isolated and inland city, and it would not 
be a good place to locate a school in which teaching 
English is made a prominent feature. 



218 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

His observation since had served to confirm him 
in the conviction of years before, and in the letter to 
a secretary of the Board, Hayes united with him 
in stating clearly and forcibly their joint opinion on 
the subject. 

In casting about for a location for the Anglo- 
Chinese college, the choice narrowed down so that 
it lay between Canton, Nanking, Shanghai, and 
Tientsin. Chefoo was mentioned, but not seriously 
considered, yet even the possibility of location there, 
although remote, was so important a matter to the 
Shantung College that it compelled the men at the 
head of that institution to be on the alert so long 
as the question was undetermined. By and by Dr. 
Happer became disposed to turn over the manage- 
ment of his projected college to some other person, 
and he wrote to Dr. Mateer, sounding him as to the 
vacancy, should it occur. The scheme at that time 
seemed to be to locate the new institution at Shang- 
hai, and to imite mth it the Shantung College; and 
in a long letter in response, written January 9, 1890, 
Dr. Mateer went very candidly over the entire sit- 
uation. Among other things he said: 

It will be necessary, however, to settle the policy of 
the coUege, and also its headship, before making 
any definite move. Whoever undertakes to make 
English and self-support prominent features, and 
then aims at a Christian college, has, as things are 
at present in China, a difficult contract on his hands. 
I for one do not feel called to embark in such an enter- 



THE SHANTUNG COLLEGE 219 

prise, and my name may as well be counted out. . . 
Nor can the school at Tengchow be moved away from 
Shantung. We might go, and the apparatus might 
be moved; but not the pupils. It is futile to talk 
of them or any considerable number of them coming 
to Shanghai; nor will pupils go from central China 
north to be educated save in exceptional cases. 
The distance and the expense are both too great. 
Each section of China must have its own schools. 

Not long afterward the situation was such that 
Dr. Mateer and Mr. Hayes addressed to the trustees 
of the endowment a paper in which a suggestion 
was made that under certain conditions the fund 
raised by Dr. Happer should be turned over to the 
Shantung College. In that paper there was a frank 
statement of their attitude as to English. They were 
entirely wilKng to introduce that language, but 
only under such conditions that it could not seriously 
alter the character and work of the institution. 
The paper is too long for introduction here. It 
will suffice to quote from a letter sent by Dr. Mateer 
at the same time to one of the secretaries of the 
Board, and dated February 9, 1891: 

There are one or two things I want to say in a 
less formal way. One is that in case our proposition 
in regard to English is not satisfactory, you will 
take care that the proposed school is not located in 
Chefoo as a rival of the college in Tengchow. It 
would be nothing short of suicidal for the Board to 
allow such a proceeding, and would be a great wrong, 
both to myself and to Mr. Hayes. We do not propose 



220 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

to engage in such a contest, but would at once resign, 
and seek some other sphere of labor. Again, I wish 
to call your attention to what is the real inwardness 
of our plan for EngHsh; namely, to teach it in such 
a way, and to such parties only, as will insure its 
being used in Hterary and scientific lines. We will 
not teach EngHsh merely to anyone, nor teach it 
to anyone who wants merely EngKsh. We will 
teach it to men, not to boys. Lastly, Mr. Hayes 
and I have for several years had in mind the idea of 
a post-graduate course in appHed science, and have 
been waiting for my visit home to push it forward; 
and even if the present endowment scheme fails, we 
will still feel like pushing it, and introducing some 
EngHsh as already indicated. 

Nothing came of the suggestion that the money 
should be turned over to the Shantung institution. 

Dr. Mateer still continued to help in the college 
at Tengchow, as he had time and opportunity. Early 
in the "nineties," and after the movement just con- 
sidered had failed to materiaHze, he soHcited from 
the Board the privilege of seeking to raise an en- 
dowment fund, but at that time he was unable to 
secure their consent. At the beginning of 1900 
the Board changed their attitude, and authorized 
an effort to be made to secure contributions for this 
purpose. Of course, in order to be successful in 
this undertaking, a satisfactory plan for the control 
of the college was a necessity; and as to this Dr. 
Mateer was consulted, and he gave his opinions 
freely. His preference was expressed for a charter 



THE SHANTUNG COLLEGE 221 

giving the endowment a separate legal status, but 
providing that the members of the Board of For- 
eign Missions, acting in this distinct capacity, should 
be the trustees. The general oversight of the insti- 
tution he thought should be assigned to a "Field 
Board of Directors," composed of members of the 
Shantung Mission. This was not a scheme that 
entirely satisfied him. The specter, on the one 
hand, of a diversion of the college into a school for 
teaching English, and, on the other, of making it 
a theological seminary, would not altogether down; 
but in the ultimate appeal to the members of the 
Board of Foreign Missions he recognized a safeguard 
that was not likely to prove inadequate. When he 
was on furlough in 1903, he spent a considerable 
part of his time in soliciting permanent funds for 
the college, then already removed to its present 
location; but he was unable to secure much aid. 
Ada was with him; and she says of his experience 
in this work, "He was so accustomed to success 
in whatever he undertook that it was hard for him 
to bear the indifference of the rich to what seemed 
to him so important." 

The transfer of the college to another location was 
a question that would not permanently rest. So 
long as it was whether it should go from Tengchow 
to Chefoo, or be swallowed up in another more pre- 
tentious institution at Shanghai, and not yet in 
existence, it was comparatively easy to silence the 
guns of those who talked removal. But at the 



222 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

opening of the twentieth century, even out there in 
north China, important changes indirectly affecting 
this problem had occurred. The missions had been 
strengthened by a number of new men, who came 
fresh from the rush of affairs in the United States, 
and eager to put their force into the work in China in 
such a way that it would tell the most. Even China 
itself was beginning to awake from the torpor of 
ages. In Shantung the Germans were building rail- 
roads, one of them right through the heart of the 
province, on by way of Wei Hsien to the capital, 
and from that point to be afterward connected 
with Tientsin and Peking. It is not strange that, 
imder the new conditions, the young members of 
the mission especially should desire to place the coUege 
which loomed up so largely and effectually in the 
work to which they had consecrated their Hves where 
it could be in closer touch with the swarming millions 
of the land and with the movements of the new 
times. February 26, 1901, Dr. Mateer wrote to 
the Board: 

At a meeting of the Shantung Mission it was voted 
to remove the Tengchow College to Wei Hsien, and 
then give up the Tengchow station. Being at 
Shanghai, engaged in the translation work, I was 
not able to be present at the mission meeting, and 
it seems incumbent on me to say something on a 
matter of so much importance, and that concerns 

me so much First, with reference to the 

college. The major part of my life has been given to 
building up the Tengchow College, and, of course, 



THE SHANTUNG COLLEGE 223 

I feel a deep interest in its future. As you can easily 
imagine, I am naturally loath to see it moved from 
the place where Providence placed it; and to see all 
the toil and thought given to fitting up the buildings, 
-^dth heating, hghting, and the other appHances go 
for nothing; as also the loss of the very considerable 
smns of money I have myseh invested in it. The 
Pro\ddence which placed the college in Tengchow 
should not be hghtly ignored, nor the natural advan- 
tages which Tengchow affords be counted for nothing. 
It is not difficult to make out a strong case for Wei 
Hsien, and I am not disposed to dispute its advan- 
tages, except it be to question the vaHdity of the 
assumption that a busy commercial center is neces- 
sarily the best place to locate a college. Li view of 
the whole question, it seems to me that unless an 
adequate endowment can be secured — one which 
will put the college on a new basis — it will not pay 
the Board to make the sacrifice involved in mo^Tng 
the college to Wei Hsien. . . . However, I would 
rather go to Wei Hsien than be opposed strongly 
at Tengchow. 

On that part of his contention he lost; and it 
would be useless now to try to ascertain the respective 
merits of the two sides to that question. The second 
part of the letter just cited discussed the abandonment 
of Tengchow as a mission station. The plan of those 
who took the affirmative of this debate was to leave 
that city to the Southern Baptists, who almost 
forty years before had preceded the Presbyterians 
a few weeks in a feeble occupation, but who had been 
entirely overshadowed by the development of the 
college. For the retention of the station Dr. Mateer 



224 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

pleaded with his utmost fervor and eloquence. 
Though the decision remained in uncertainty while 
he lived, and the uncertainty gave him much anxiety, 
large gifts, coming since, from a consecrated layman, 
have rendered the retention of the Tengchow station 
secure. The wisdom of the decision is vindicated 
by present conditions. At the close of 1909 the 
station reported a city church with three hundred 
members; a Sabbath school which sometimes numbers 
five hundred pupils; thirty out-stations with about 
^ve hundred members; twenty-four primary schools, 
giving instruction to three hundred and sixteen 
boys and girls, and taught by graduates of the higher 
schools of the station; a girls' high school with an 
average enrollment of forty-six pupils, and for the 
year then closing having twelve graduates, nearly 
all of whom became teachers; a boys' high school 
with an attendance of forty, and sending up a number 
of graduates to the college at Wei Hsien or to other 
advanced institutions, and having a normal depart- 
ment with a model primary department; and also a 
helpers' summer school; besides other machinery 
for reaching with the gospel the three milHons of 
people gathered in the neighborhood of Tengchow. 
Nor has the work of the Presbyterians in the least 
hampered that of the Southern Baptists. 

The actual removal of the college was not effected 
xmtil the autumn of 1904. In the interval between 
the time when it was determined to take this step 
and when it was actually accomplished a number of 



THE SHANTUNG COLLEGE 225 

important things affecting the course of Dr. Mateer's 
life occurred. Mr. Hayes, as elsewhere stated, re- 
signed the presidency; and Rev. Paul D. Bergen, 
who had come out to the mission in 1883, was chosen 
in his place. Dr. Mateer had been so closely asso- 
ciated with ]Mr. Hayes, and had such complete confi- 
dence in him, that the resignation came almost like 
a personal bereavement; but he rose nobly out of 
the depths, and wrote home to the Board: ^'Mr. 
Bergen is clearly the best man that our missions in 
Shantung afford for the place. He is very popular 
with the Chinese, which is much in his favor. The 
time is as auspicious as it is important. Educational 
affairs are taking a great boom, and it looks as if 
Shantung was going to lead the van. If it is properly 
supported the college should do a great work." 
During the interval here covered Dr. Mateer came to 
the United States on his third and last furlough, 
reaching China again in the autumn of 1903, and 
bringing with him some substantial fruits of his 
efforts for the college. 

On his arrival he was confronted by another great 
problem as to the institution. A combination had 
already been almost effected by the American Pres- 
byterians and the English Baptists in Shantung for 
a union in the work of higher education in the prov- 
ince. The matter had already gone so far that, 
although he feared that the scheme would bring 
about such radical changes as to endanger the real 
usefulness of the institution, yet he made no serious 
15 



CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

opposition, and it went steadily forward to con- 
summation. Under the plan adopted the Shantung 
Christian University was established; and provision 
was made for a joint maintenance of three distinct 
colleges in it, each at a different location, chosen 
because of mission and other conditions — a college of 
arts and science at Wei Hsien, a theological college 
at Tsingchow fu, and a medical college at Tsinan fu. 
The plan also provides for a university council, to 
which is committed the general control of the insti- 
tution, subject, of course, to certain fundamental 
regulations; and of this body Dr. Mateer was one 
of the original members. The first meeting was 
held at Tsingchow fu near the end of 1903. Writing 
to one of the secretaries of the Board of Missions 
concerning this, he said: ^'All were present. Our 
meeting was quite harmonious. We elected pro- 
fessors and discussed and drew out some general 
principles relating to the curriculum and the general 
management. Theoretically things seem quite prom- 
ising; the difficulty will come in practical admin- 
istration. The buildings at Wei Hsien are all up 
to the first floor. There should be no difficulty in 
getting all ready by next autumn, at which time the 
college ought by all means to be moved." Early the 
next summer he wrote: *'I started to Wei Hsien 
about a month ago, overland. I spent over two 
weeks taking down and packing my goods, and so 
forth, including workshop, boiler, engine, dynamo, 
and so forth. I found it quite a serious undertaking 



THE SHANTUNG COLLEGE 227 

to get all my miscellaneous goods packed up, ready 
for shipment on boats to Wei Hsien. ... I 
remained in Wei Hsien twenty-four days, impack- 
ing my effects, getting my workshop in order, and 
planning for the heating and Hghting outfit." In 
the same letter he expressed himself as follows con- 
cerning the theological college at Tsingchow fu: 
*'It was certainly understood at the meeting of 
the directors last winter that it was to be much 
more than a theological seminary in the strict sense 
of the word. It was understood, in fact, that it 
would have two departments, — a training school 
and a theological seminary proper. In this way 
only can the full measure of our needs be suppKed. 
. . . With this organization it is not unlikely 
that the school at Tsingchow fu will be larger than the 
college at Wei Hsien." 

This narrative as to Dr. Mateer and the Shantung 
CoUege is now approaching its close, and most readers 
probably will prefer that, so far as practicable, the 
remainder of it shall be told in his own words. 
December 21, 1904, he wrote to a friend: "The 
college is now fuUy moved to Wei Hsien, and has in 
it about a hundred and twenty students. The new 
buildings are quite fine, — ^much superior to those we 
had in Tengchow. Mrs. Mateer and I have moved 
to Wei Hsien to Hve and will make this our home. 
We are living in the same house with my brother 
Robert, making all one family. This arrangement 
suits us very well. I am not teaching in the college, 



228 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

but I would not feel at home if I were away from it. 
I hope it has a great future." In his report for 
himself and wife, for the year 1904-05, he says: 
^'The greater part of the autumn was spent in over- 
seeing the building and fitting up of a workshop, 
and in superintending the setting up of a new thirty- 
two horse-power steam boiler for heating and light- 
ing the college, together with a system of steam 
piping for the same; also the setting up of engine 
and dynamo and wiring the college for electric lights. 
I also set up a windmill and pump and tank, with 
pipes for supplying the college and several dwelling 
houses with water. I also built for myself and Mrs. 
Mateer a seven-kien house in Chinese style, affording 
a study, bedroom, storeroom, box room, and coal 
room." This Httle, narrow, one-story house con- 
stituted their home during the rest of his Hfe in Wei 
Hsien, though they still took their meals with the 
other family. They sometimes called this house 
''the Borderland," for only a narrow path separated 
them from the small foreign cemetery at the extreme 
corner of the compound. In November, 1905, he 
wrote to one of the secretaries of the Board: "The 
college is, of course, delighted at the prospect of a 
Science Hall. I take some credit for having prepared 
the way for this gift from Mr. Converse." In his report 
for the year 1906 he said: '^ During the early part of the 
winter I spent considerable time, planning, estimating, 
and ordering supplies for the lighting, heating, and 
water supply of the new Science Hall at Wei Hsien." 



THE SHANTUNG COLLEGE 229 

We are at length face to face with the last stage in 
the active connection of Dr. Mateer with the college. 
February 26, 1907, he wrote to one of the secretaries 
of the Board of Missions: 

I returned three days ago from the meeting of 
the College Directors at Tsingchow fu. The meeting 
was prolonged and a very important one. A number 
of important and embarrassing questions were before 
us. . . . You will hear from others, of course, 
and from the minutes, that Dr. Bergen resigned the 
presidency of the college, and that in our inability 
to find a successor I was asked to take the position 
temporarily, until other arrangements could be made, 
and Dr. Bergen was asked to remain as a professor, 
which he agreed to do. This provided for the teach- 
ing, and makes it possible for me to take the presi- 
dency without doing much teaching, which I could 
not do under present conditions. 

During the period of his service in this capacity 
the college not only did well in its regular work; it 
also made some important advances. The total 
attendance was one hundred and eighty-one, and a 
class of ten was graduated at commencement. At 
Tengchow he had always valued the literary societies 
very highly, and these now received a fresh impetus. 
Several rooms of the new Science Hall were brought 
into use; two additional rows of dormitories were 
built, one for college and personal teachers and 
workmen, and one for students; not to mention 
lesser matters. 

Nevertheless he found his official position in certain 



230 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

ways very uncomfortable. Some of the reasons of 
this were casual to the internal administration, 
and cannot now be appreciated by outsiders, and 
are not worth airing here. Others were of a more 
permanent nature, and had to do with the future 
conduct, . and character of the institution. The 
question of English had been for a while hushed to 
sleep; but it was now awake again, and asserted 
itself with new \dgor. In a letter dated December 19, 
1907, he said: ''I am strongly in favor of an EngKsh 
School, preferably at Tsinan fu, but I am opposed to 
EngHsh in the college. It would very soon destroy 
the high grade of scholarship hitherto maintained, 
and direct the whole output of the college into secular 
Hnes." His fear was that if English were introduced 
the graduates of the institution would be diverted 
from the ministry and from the great work of evan- 
gelizing the people to commercial pursuits, and that 
it would become a training school of compradors 
and clerks. Later the intensity of his opposition 
to the introduction of English was considerably 
modified, because of the advantage which he per- 
ceived to be enjoyed iu the large union meetings, by 
such of the Chinese as knew this language in addition 
to their own. He saw, too, that with the change of 
times a knowledge of English had come to be recog- 
nized as an essential in the new learning, as a bond of 
unity between different parts of China, and as a 
means of contact with the outside world. Looking 
at the chief danger as past, he expressly desired that 



THE SHANTUNG COLLEGE 231 

the theologues should be taught English. At any 
rate he had been contending for a cause that was 
evidently lost. At this writing the curriculum of the 
college offers five hours in English as an optional 
study for every term of the four required years; and 
also of the fifth year. Dr. Mateer, besides, was not 
fully in sympathy with a movement that was then 
making to secure a large gift from the ''General 
Education Fund" for the endowment of the institu- 
tion. In the letter just quoted he says: "The college 
should be so administered by its president and faculty 
as to send some men into the ministry, or it fails 
of its chief object. I am in favor of stimulating a 
natural growth, but not such a rapid and abnormal 
growth as will dechristianize it. I do not believe 
in the sudden and rapid enlargement of the plant 
beyond the need at the time. It would rapidly 
secularize the college and divert it entirely from 
its proper ideal and work." These questions were 
too practical, and touched the vitals of the institu- 
tion too deeply, to be ignored by earnest friends on 
either side. Some things as to the situation are so 
transparent that they can be recognized by any 
person who looks at it from not too close a point of 
view. The entire merits of the argument were in 
no case wholly on one side; and as a consequence 
it is not surprising that wise and good men differed 
as they did; and the only decisive test is actual 
trial of the changes advocated by the younger men. 
It is also perfectly plain that in this affair we have 



232 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

only another instance of a state of things so often 
recurring; that is, of a man who has done a great 
work, putting into it a long Hfe of toil and self-sacri- 
fice, and bringing it at length to a point where he 
must decrease and it must increase; and where in 
the very nature of the case it must be turned over to 
younger hands, to be guided as they see its needs in 
the Hght of the dawning day. He can scarcely any 
longer be the best judge of what ought to be done; 
but even if he were, the management must be left 
for good or ill to them. That evidently is the light 
in which Dr. Mateer came ultimately to see this 
matter. He courageously faced the inevitable. In 
this, as in all other cases, no personal animosity 
was harbored by him toward anyone who differed 
from him. 

October 27, 1907, he wrote to an associate on the 
Mandarin Revision Committee: ^'I have now dis- 
solved myself from the management of the college, 
and shall have very httle to do with it in the future. 
It has cost me a great deal to do it, but it is best it 
should be so. I am now free from any cares or 
responsibility in educational matters." In a letter 
to Secretary Brown, dated December 21, 1907, 
he said: ^'In view of the circumstances I thought 
it best to resign at once, and unconditionally, both 
the presidency and my office as director. I have no 
ambition to be president, and in fact was only there 
temporarily until another man should be chosen. 
I did not wish to be a director when I could not 



THE SHANTUNG COLLEGE 233 

conscientiously carry out the ideas and policy of 
a majority of the mission. It was no small trial, 
I assure you, to resign all connection with the college, 
after spending the major part of my missionary 
Hfe working for it. It did, in fact, seriously affect 
my health for several weeks. I cannot stand such 
strains as I once did." 

One of the striking incidents of his fimeral service 
at Tsingtao was the reading of the statistics of 
the graduates of the Tengchow College, including 
the students who came with the college to Wei Hsien. 
These have since been carefully revised and are 
as follows: Total receiving diplomas, 205; teachers 
in government schools, 38; teachers in church schools, 
68; pastors, 17; evangelists, 16; literary work, 10; 
in business, 9; physicians, 7; post-office service, 4; 
railroad service, 2; Y. M. C. A. service, 2; customs 
service, i; business clerks, 2; secretaries, i; at 
their homes, 6; deceased, 22. These graduates 
are scattered among thirteen denominations, and 
one hundred schools, and in sixteen provinces of 
China. About two hundred more who were stu- 
dents at Tengchow did not complete the course of 
studies. 

The institution since its removal has continued 
steadily to go forward. The large endowment that 
was both sought and feared has not yet been realized, 
and consequently the effect of such a gift has not 
been tested by experience; but other proposed 
changes have been made. A pamphlet published 



234 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

in 1 910 reports for the college of arts and sciences 
an enrollment of three hundred and six students, 
and in the academy, eighty. The class which grad- 
uates numbers seventeen, all of whom are Christians. 
Down to that year there had been at Wei Hsien 
among the graduates no candidates for the ministry, 
but during 19 10, under the ministration of a Chinese 
pastor, a quiet but mighty religious awakening per- 
vaded the institution, and one outcome has been a 
vast increase in the number of candidates for the 
ministry or other evangelistic work. The pamph- 
let already quoted speaks of more than one hun- 
dred of the college students who have decided to 
offer themselves for this work. It is appropriately 
added that ''such a movement as this amongst our 
students inspires us with almost a feehng of awe. 
. . . Our faith had never reached the conception 
of such a number as the above simultaneously mak- 
ing a decision." It has recently been decided to bring 
all the departments of the university to Tsinan fu, the 
provincial capital. 

In the theological college at Tsingchow fu, accord- 
ing to the last report, there were eleven students 
in the regular theological department and one hun- 
dred and twenty-eight in the normal school. In 
the medical college at Tsinan fu there were thirteen 
young men. The aggregate for the whole univer- 
sity rises to five hundred and thirty-eight. On the 
Presbyterian side this all began with those six little 
boys, in the old Kwan Yin temple, in the autumn 



THE SHANTUNG COLLEGE 235 

of 1864, at Tengchow. To-day it is a university, 
and is second to no higher institution of learning 
in China. 

It is said that Dr. Mateer never led in prayer^ 
either public or private, that he did not most ear- 
nestly ask that the Lord would raise up Chinese 
Christian men, who as leaders would bring many 
to Christ. His prayers during the forty-five years 
of his missionary life are receiving a wonderful an- 
swer at Wei Hsien and at Tsingchow fu. 



XII 
WITH APPARATUS AND MACHINERY 

"The things most likely to be needed in China, are first, 
electrical engineering, especially telegraphy, and second, civil 
engineering, especially surveying and laying out of railroads. 
Special preparation in one or both of these things would be very 
valuable. But what is more necessary for immediate use, and 
as a preUminary to these things, is a practical knowledge of 
scientific apparatus, — ^how to make and how to use it. I 
have myself picked it up from books, without any instructor, 
but only at a great expense of time and labor." — letter to 

A PROSPECTIVE TEACHER, Octobcr 29, 1 888. 

WHENEVER a group of the early acquaint- 
ances of Dr. Mateer talked together about 
him, one thing certain to be mentioned was 
his achievements with apparatus and machinery, both 
with the making and with the using of them. Out 
in China his reputation for this was so great that it 
at times came near to being a burden to him. We 
have already seen that the temporary superintendence 
of the mission press at Shanghai was thrust upon him, 
contrary to his own preference, and because, as he 
expressed it in a letter at that time, the men in control 
considered him a ^'Jack-of -all- trades," able to do 
anything at which he might be put. If they then did 
really think of him as no more than a man who with 
machinery could do a great many things without 
performing any of them thoroughly well, they did 

236 



APPARATUS AND MACHINERY 237 

him a great injustice, which their subsequent knowl- 
edge amply corrected. As the years went by, and 
in this sphere of his multifarious activity he rose to 
larger and more difficult achievements, his fame as 
to this spread far and wide among both natives and 
foreigners. At no time, however, did he permit his 
efficiency in this Kne to loom up in such a form or in 
such a degree as to seem even to others to put his dis- 
tinctively missionary labors into the background. It 
is a significant fact that in the eulogiums pronounced 
on him at his death this feature of his character and 
work is seldom even mentioned. He was — first, last, 
and all the time — a man whose life and whose abihties 
were so completely and so manifestly consecrated to 
the evangehzation of the Chinese that when those 
who knew him best looked back over the finished 
whole, his remarkable achievements with apparatus 
and machinery scarcely arrested their attention. 

Dr. Mateer himself regarded his efficiency in this 
sphere as due in some measure to native endowment. 
He had an inborn taste and ability for that sort of 
work; and stories have come down concerning certain 
very early manifestations of this characteristic. It 
is related that when he was a little boy he was suffering 
loss through the raids made by the woodpeckers on 
a cherry tree laden with luscious fruit. He pondered 
the situation carefully, and then set up a pole, close 
by, with a nice lodging place for a bird at the top, 
and armed himself with a mallet down at the foot. 
The woodpecker would grab a cherry, and immediately 



238 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

fly to the pole in order to eat it; but a sharp blow 
with the mallet would bring him from his perch to the 
ground. So the boy saved his cherries. It is also 
related of him that when a mere boy he had a friendly 
dispute with his father over the question whether a 
sucking pig had the homing instinct. He maintained 
that it would return to its mother under conditions 
that proved the affirmative; and in order to satisfy 
himself, he placed a pig in a sack, and took it a long 
way from its famihar haunts, and turned it loose. 
It had been agreed that the result was to decide 
the ownership. To his delight, immediately the pig 
started on a bee line for home, and never gave up the 
race until it was back in its old place. 

For the development and application of this natural 
gift he received almost no help from others. Probably 
if that old workbench in the barn at the '' Hermitage" 
could speak, it might tell something as to oversight 
and guidance of the boy by his father, in making and 
repairing traps and tools for use in recreation and in 
work; but beyond this he had no instruction. In his 
day at college a chemical or physical laboratory was 
supposed to be exclusively for the professor to prepare 
his experiments; the student was expected only to 
be a spectator in the classroom when the experiments 
were shown. The man who occupied the chair of 
natural philosophy at Jefferson when we were there 
had a gift for supplementing his scanty outfit of ap- 
paratus with the products of his own skill and labor, 
and if the student Mateer had found his way down 



APPARATUS AND MACHINERY 239 

into the subterranean regions where these were 
wrought, he and Professor Jones would have rejoiced 
together in sympathetic collaboration; but no such 
unheard-of violation of ancient custom occurred. 
In the academy at Beaver he first turned his hand to 
making a few pieces of apparatus which he craved as 
helps in teaching. But it was not until he reached 
China that this field for his talent opened before him, 
and continued to enlarge all the rest of his life. In 
fact, even when he was absent from China, on his 
furloughs, he did not get away from his work with 
apparatus and machinery. During one of his earlier 
furloughs, while he was looking up everything that 
could be helpful to his Chinese boys, he spent some 
time in the Baldwin Locomotive Works, by special 
permission, in studying the construction of locomo- 
tives, so that he might be able to make a model of one 
on his return to China. In connection with this he 
showed such an acquaintance with the structure of 
these engines that he could scarcely convince some 
of the skilled mechanics that he had not been trained 
to the business. Dr. Corbett wrote concerning him, 
after his death: ''It was my privilege to meet him 
at the World's Fair at Chicago in 1893. He had spent 
nearly a month there examining minutely many 
things of special interest to him. As my time was 
limited he kindly became my guide for a while, and 
gave me the benefit of his observations. We first 
visited the department of electricity, which he had 
carefully studied in all its various appHcations. We 



240 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

next went to Machinery Hall, where he had spent days 
making drawings, measurements, and so forth, of the 
most complex machinery. He seemed to understand 
everything as though this had been the work of his 
life." Dr. Hayes says: ^'Dr. Mateer's ability to meet 
exigencies was well shown a few years ago in Wei 
Hsien, when suddenly the large dynamo failed to 
produce a current. He unwound the machine until 
he located the fault, reinsulated the wire and rewound 
the coil; after which the machine furnished its current 
as usual. . . . Electrot3^ing was hardly in general 
use in the west until he secured an outfit of tools 
and taught a class of native artisans. When electric 
fans came in vogue he purchased a small one as a model 
and proceeded to make another." 

The time came when Dr. Mateer had a shop 
equipped to do a great variety of work; and though 
not on a large scale, yet big enough to meet his needs. 
Already in 1886 in a letter to his brother William he 
said: ''In order to repair apparatus, and in order to 
make many simpler articles, I have fitted up quite a 
complete workshop, entirely at my own expense. 
I have invested in the shop, in tools and materials 
quite one thousand dollars. I keep a workman at 
my own cost, whom I have trained so that he can do 
most ordinary kinds of work. There are a great 
many small articles we can make here more cheaply 
than we can buy them. There are, however, many 
articles we cannot make, especially those that involve 
glass or the use of special machinery, or special skill." 



APPARATUS AND MACHINERY 241 

That shop continued to grow, and the variety of its 
output increased. Writing of this, Mrs. Ada Mateer 
says: 

So soon as possible in addition to the room used for 
carpenter work, a side house was devoted to the 
purposes of a shop, which grew in completeness as 
time went on. An upper story was used for storing 
finished apparatus, for a painting, varnishing, and 
drying room. The lower story was the shop proper, 
with well, smithy, a long workroom, private room for 
chemicals and so forth. Every conceivable amount 
of space in the shop — above, around, and below — 
was occupied with materials, on boards hung from 
above, in cases made of old boxes Hning the walls, 
and on the floor. The shop contained not only 
materials for things that are to be, but became also 
a tomb of things that were, but are not, as well as a 
hospital for things disabled. What old histories were 
unearthed when, after forty years, this shop had to 
be moved to Wei Hsien ! 

Up there it was perpetuated, the main difference 
consisting in larger and better quarters, with some 
improved conveniences. His wife continues: 

For every machine bought, the market was can- 
vassed by correspondence, and the best selected. 
Especially was this true with reference to any tools 
or machinery used in the construction of apparatus, — 
as machines for turning, blacksmithing, plumbing, 
screw- cutting, burnishing, electroplating, casting, and 
so forth. His shop was thoroughly fitted with all 
appliances for the making of apparatus, or electric or 
steam outfitting, so that he was ready to do anything, 
i6 



242 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

from setting up a windmill or water system, or in- 
stalling an engine and dynamo, to brazing broken 
spectacle frames or repairing a bicycle. 

So far as it was practicable he turned over the actual 
mechanical labor to Chinese workmen, — a skilled 
foreman and apprentices under the foreman's direction. 

Why, though a missionary, did he employ so con- 
siderable a part of his time in this way? Especially 
at the outset of his missionary career stern necessity 
to meet his own needs and those of his associates drove 
him to this line of work. Had he been set down in 
China at some such place as Shanghai, where foreign 
articles could be purchased, very likely his mechanical 
gifts would have remained largely dormant. But at 
Tengchow he helped to make a stove out of odds and 
ends, because one was indispensable in order to keep 
warm. For the same sort of reason he extracted 
teeth and made false sets, cobbled shoes, and acted as 
master workman of all the building trades in the erec- 
tion of the ''new home." Sometimes he was thus 
compelled to do things which seemed strange even 
to him. When, in 1865, Httle Katie Mills died, he 
had to act the part of undertaker. He said: 

It fell to me to make the coffin, which I did as well 
as I could from memory. I could not tell the car- 
penter, and I had to do the work myself. He did 
the rough work, and I did the cutting and fitting. 
I had to go entirely by my eye, and I found it no easy 
matter to get it in every respect in proportion. We 
covered it with black velvet outside, and inside vnth 



APPARATUS AND MACHINERY 243 

white linen. It looked very well when finished, and 
pleased Mr. and Mrs. Mills very much. It is a work 
I never thought of doing. 

At one point on the way through Siberia when 
homeward bound on his last furlough the train was 
halted by some defect in the working of the mechanism 
of the locomotive. Dr. Mateer, on account of the 
delay, got out of his compartment and went to see 
what was the matter. He saw that the locomotive 
was a huge Baldwin, with whose construction he had 
famiKarized himself when in the United States on a 
previous furlough, and he quickly discovered the 
cause of the trouble. He could speak no Russian, 
and the men in charge of the engine could speak no 
English, but he managed to show them the cause of 
the defective working of the mechanism, and how to 
remedy it; and soon the train was again speeding on 
its way. 

The time never came during his long residence in 
China when a necessity did not occasionally force 
itself on him to utilize his mechanical gifts, and not 
infrequently on the common utensils of life. In V/ei 
Hsien he often spent hours directing in such repairs as 
were needed for furnaces and the Hke. 

Few of his later and larger achievements in this field 
could be fairly regarded as works of necessity, strictly 
speaking; they rather were meant to be aids in the 
great enterprise of evangelizing the Chinese Empire. 
He was thoroughly convinced that one of the most 
powerful agencies that could be employed for this 



CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

purpose was the school and the college. He was 
equally sure that of all the studies that could be 
introduced into the curricula of these institutions, 
none could be so effective in opening the way for the 
gospel as that of the natural sciences, and especially 
physics, inclusive of modern mechanical appliances of 
its principles. He believed that if bright young men 
were educated in that kind of knowledge, and sent 
out under Christian influences among their own people, 
if they were also converted to Christianity, the out- 
come must be the dissipation of the existing blind 
adherence to the superstitions and ideas of centuries 
long remote in the past; and that with this must 
come the opening wide of the door for the entrance of 
Christianity. That was his forecast; and the present 
situation in China goes far toward vindicating the 
wisdom of it. But to teach effectively the natural 
sciences he must have apparatus. The only way he 
could secure this was by buying what he could, and 
by utilizing his own ability to set this up, and to add 
as much as possible for the outfit yet needed. Such 
was the prime object not only of what in a more 
limited sense constituted the apparatus of the school 
and college, but also of such larger appliances as the 
plant for heating and Hghting the premises. These 
were far more than conveniences that helped to better 
work; they were themselves constant exhibitions to 
the students and to the people at large of the principles 
of natural science, and of their value in the affairs of 
actual life. 



APPARATUS AND MACHINERY M5 

Dr. Mateer utilized his outfit of apparatus and 
machinery as a means of reaching others besides the 
students in his own institution, with the influence of 
modern science, thus opening a way into their minds 
for the gospel. As to one of his methods of accom- 
plishing this object Ada gives a graphic account: 

At the time when the official examinations were held 
in Tengchow, a large number of scholars came to 
town, hoping to secure a degree, which should be the 
first step toward official preferment. So many of 
these, having heard the fame of the foreign machine, 
came to see and to hear, that Dr. Mateer used to 
give up his time to them during the days they were 
at leisure. Finally the opportunity to do good in 
this way proved so great that a place was provided 
for the purpose, which was also much used at the 
Chinese New Year, when all the town and countryside 
give themselves up to recreation. After the "Manda- 
rin Lessons" began to bring in money, he devoted the 
profits to the building of a large museum, with an 
entrance on the street. One half was a big audience 
room, so arranged that it could be darkened down for 
stereopticon or cinematograph exhibitions. But it 
usually served as an audience room, where the crowds 
could sit and listen to preaching, while the detachment 
that preceded them was shown through the inner 
room by expert assistants. What a chamber of 
wonders that inner room proved to them! Here was 
a man, using a single hand to turn a small crank, 
grinding corn as fast as a woman or a donkey could 
do it on the millstones with much more labor. Here 
in cases were birds stuffed, and on the walls pictures 
of strange animals. Here was a man turning a large 
crank that in some mysterious way made a Httle iron 



246 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

car overhead first send out sparks, and then run all 
around the room on a circular railroad. They won- 
dered if it would not have been easier for the man to 
drag the car around on the ground! There was an 
oil engine at the end of the room, that was a wonder, 
no mistake; and a ''shocking" machine that shocked 
them indeed; and untold other wonders. When 
the tour of the room was finished, the crowd was let 
out by another door, their almond eyes quite round, 
while a signal given by a steam siren showed it was 
time for the next group to go in, and "open-open-eyes," 
as they call sight-seeing. 

Occasionally a mandarin of high order came to 
witness the marvels. The report of the Shantung 
Mission for 1909 says that through the agency of the 
chapel and museum twelve thousand people were 
brought into touch with the gospel during the year; 
so the work still continues. 

Another good account to which Dr. Mateer turned 
this peculiar gift was that of starting industries for 
native Christians and promoting self-help among the 
needy. Now it was a loom for weaving coarse Chinese 
linsey or bagging, or a spinning or a knitting machine, 
that he ordered; again, he inquired for a roller press 
to be used for drying and pressing cotton cloth after 
dyeing; and more than once he sent for a lathe for a 
Chinese blacksmith. In 1896 he interested himself 
in procuring an outfit for a flouring mill. He said: 
''The enterprise of starting the mill was conceived 
by Chinese Christians, and they are going to form a 
company to raise the money. I do not think that 



APPARATUS AXD MACHINERY 247 

there is a roller mill in China, — certainly not in north 
China. . . . We personally will not make a cent 
out of it; but we are interested to get the Chinese 
Christians started in an enterprise by which they can 
make a K\'ing, and introduce improvements into their 
country." 

His apprentices went out in many instances master 
blacksmiths, machinists, and electricians, and had no 
dirhculty in finding places. A Chinese general tem- 
porarily at Tengchow employed one of these men as 
a blacksmith, and his order was so e\'idently filled 
according to western methods that he paid a \isit to 
the wonderful shop of this wonderful master. The 
very last man for whom he obtained a place was his 
most skilled electrician and his latest foreman. This 
man started a shop up at the capital of the pro\ince, 
and for its outfit Dr. Mateer carried on an extensive 
correspondence and procured large invoices of goods. 
Because of the pro\'incial university estabhshed there 
under the new educational regime there was imperative 
need of such an estabHshment, and the outlook for 
success was excellent. Unfortunately for the pro- 
prietor, however, the Chinese officials were equally 
ahve to the opportunity and were jealous of a rival. 
So they managed to compel him to sell out, though 
they broke the fall a httle for him by retaining him as 
forem.an. It is said that the thought of this work- 
man's troubles lay hea\y on the heart of Dr. Mateer 
in his last iUness. It was usually for the poor that 
he interested himself after this practical fashion; yet 



248 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

he did not refuse to lend aid to others in promoting 
enterprises that would be of general advantage. For 
a wealthy Chinaman who owned a coal mine that 
had been flooded with water he went to a great deal 
of trouble in order to put him in the way of securing 
a suitable pump. But whether it was for rich or poor 
that the opportunity came to render such services, 
he put aside all thought of his own ease or name or 
profit, and did the best in his power. 

He had special satisfaction in the manufacture of 
electrical machines, though it was no easy matter to 
cut and bore the large glass wheels without breaking 
them, and to adjust all parts so that the greatest 
efficiency was attained. Ada says: 

When a machine was perfected, giving an unusually 
long spark, he always Uked to take me over at night 
to the shop to see it perform. I well remember the 
last time, — at Wei Hsien. At one end of the shop 
was the windmill. Here he stopped to show me a 
way of equalizing the stroke of the windmill pump 
piston, by hanging on an old kettle of scrap iron. 
Then he took me into an inner room, where on one 
end of a long table stood the newly finished machine, — 
a beauty, no mistake. Having forgotten some neces- 
sary key, he took the lantern and went to get it, 
leaving me in the dark. I noticed sounds, the dripping 
of water in the well; but what was the ticking I heard? 
On the return of the lantern I saw the cause, — a number 
of clock dials all hung on the wall, and all to be run 
by one clock by m.eans of electricity. These were for 
the college recitation rooms when they should be 
finished. Then Calvin made the new machine do its 



APPARATUS AND MACHINERY 249 

work. Adjusting carefully the mechanism, and then 
measuring the spark, he exclaimed with boyish glee, 
''There, isn't that a beauty!" 

Dr. W. A. P. Martin, of Peking, related in the 
"Chinese Recorder" of December, 1908, this incident 
as to Dr. Mateer: ''It was once my priAolege to spend 
part of a vacation in his hospitable home at Tengchow. 
I found him at work constructing scientific apparatus 
with his own hands and wresthng with a mathematical 
problem which he had met in an American magazine. 
When I solved the problem, he e\inced a Kvely satis- 
faction, as if it were the one thing required to cement 
our friendship." The problem was to find the diame- 
ter of an auger, which, passing through the center of 
a sphere, wiU bore away just one hah of its bulk. It 
is easy to see that to a m^an of that sort his work and 
the scientific and practical problems constantly arising 
in connection with the making of apparatus and the 
adjustment of machinery must have been in them- 
selves a rich source of pleasure, though he never 
allowed himself to be so fascinated by his shop as to 
break in on what he conceived to be his higher work. 
Speaking of his last years, Ada says: "He would go 
out wearied with the baffling search for a way of 
expressing clearly in Chinese a thought none too clear 
in the original Greek, his forehead grooved with the 
harrows of thought. He would come back from the 
shop an hour later, with well-begrimed hands, a new 
spot on his long Chinese gown, a fresher pink in his 
cheeks, a brighter sparkle in his eyes, and his lips 



250 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

parted with a smile. Then, having washed, he would 
immediately set himself again to the work of revision." 
He loved also to share this joy, so far as it could 
be done, mth others. At the Synod of China with 
his apparatus he gave several exhibitions that were 
greatly appreciated. At Wei Hsien he rendered 
similar services in the high schools, and at Chefoo 
in the school for the children of missionaries. The 
Centennial Fourth of July, being quite an exceptional 
occasion, he celebrated not with ordinary gunpowder, 
but by setting off a considerable quantity of detonating 
chemicals. In the early days at Tengchow a home- 
made electric fly whisk whirled above the dining 
table, and a little pneumatic fountain pla}dng in a 
bell glass rendered the room and the meals addition- 
ally pleasant to the family and to the guests. Ada 
writes: 

But the thing that most of us will remember longest 
is an illustrated lecture on electricity delivered to the 
college in Wei Hsien, and afterward to the foreigners 
there. As we sat in a darkened room in the college 
watching the long sparks of fire, the twisting circles 
of many-colored Hght, half illuminating a tall, white- 
bearded figure in a long black gown, he seemed to us 
like some old magician, learned in the black arts, now 
become bright arts, invoking to his aid his attendant 
spirits. Nor was the enchantment diminished when 
afterward, more wonderful than a palmister, he showed 
us by the x-rsiys the bones of our hands. A few weeks 
later one of the ladies of the compound gave an evening 
entertaiament in which each one in the station was hit 
off in some bright way, and we were to guess the name. 



APPARATUS AND MACHINERY 251 

One number of the programme was this: A black- 
robed figure with cotton beard appeared, leading a 
youth whom he seated in a chair. Then the venerable 
personage proceeds to examine the head of the stripling 
with a stereoscope covered with black cloth, supposed 
to be a fluoroscope, while an alarm clock in a tin pail 
near by suppHes the crackling of electricity. He gives 
a careful examination, shakes his head, and pronounces 
the verdict in one word, ''Empty." In explanation 
of the tableau it only needs to be said that between 
the exhibition and the entertainment Dr. Mateer had 
given the young men of the station their examination 
ia the language. 



XIII 
THE MANDARIN VERSION 

"I am mortgaged to the Bible revision work. ... It 
cost me a great effort to engage in it, but it will probably be the 
most important work of my life." — letter to secretary 
BROWN, Jime 13, 1896. 

TO tell this part of the story of Dr. Mateer's life 
satisfactorily, I must begin with the first gen- 
eral missionary conference, held at Shanghai in 
May, 1877. For two years previous he had served 
on a committee to prepare the way for the meeting, 
and in this capacity he had rendered much valuable 
assistance. At that conference he read a paper in 
which he elaborately discussed the subject of "The 
Relation of Protestant Missions to Education." The 
meeting was regarded as successful, and a second was 
called, to assemble at Shanghai, in May, 1890. It 
was at this conference that the movement for a revi- 
sion of the Bible in Chinese took actual measures 
toward realization. 

For the sake of any readers not well informed as 
to the Chinese language, a few preliminary statements 
concerning it may be desirable here. In a very broad 
and general sense it may be said that as to elements, 
one tongue prevails throughout China proper; but 
that there is also much important variation in this 

252 



THE MANDARIN VERSION 253 

general tongue. First of all, it needs to be noted that 
the language takes on two principal forms, — the 
classic, or Wen-li, and the spoken, or Mandarin. 
The classic has come down through the centuries from 
the times of Confucius and Mencius, and remains 
comparatively the same as it is found in the writings 
of those sages. This is accepted as the model for 
all writing; and for that reason Chinese students have 
been required to spend the greater part of their time 
in memorizing those ancient books, so that they might 
not only absorb their teaching, but also especially 
that they might be able to reproduce their style. 
The classic Chinese is stilted and so condensed that in 
comparison with it a telegram would seem diffuse; 
and though many of the characters are the same as 
those used in writing the spoken language, yet the 
meaning and often the sound of characters is so 
different that an illiterate person would not understand 
it on hearing it read. The spoken language, on the 
other hand, may be compared with English as to its 
use. Good English is very much the same throughout 
the countries where it is the vernacular, and though 
it takes on local dialects, it remains everywhere 
intelligible. So, broadly speaking, is it also as to the 
spoken Chinese in a large part of the empire. From 
the Yangtse up into Manchuria, though the pronun- 
ciations differ very much, the colloquial if put into 
writing is understood. In other words, with differ- 
ences of dialect and pronunciation it is the speech 
of perhaps three hundred millions of people. The 



254 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

regions excepted lie along the coast from Shanghai 
down, and inland south of the Yangtse, where the 
distinct tongues are numerous and are largely un- 
intelligible except in their own localities. 

It has been the rule in China that a mandarin 
must not be a native of the province where he holds 
office; and, of course, it is essential that he should 
be acquainted with the speech which constitutes the 
lingua franca. Perhaps for this reason it is called 
Mandarin. But down to the time when missionary 
publications rendered it common in print, it was not 
employed in that mode. All books, business or 
government documents, the one newspaper of the 
country, which was the court gazette, and all letters 
were in the higher or, as it is called, the Wen-li form, 
the only exception being some novels, and even these 
were streaked with Wen-li. This, however, ran 
through gradations, — from the highest, which is so 
condensed and so bristles with erudite allusions that 
only a trained scholar can understand it, down to a 
modification which is so easy that with a slight 
alteration of particles it is almost the same as the 
Mandarin. 

During the long period of the nineteenth century 
preceding the meeting of the second general missionary 
conference, a number of translations of the Scriptures, 
some of them of the whole, and some of parts, had 
been made, and had come more or less into use. The 
men who did this pioneer work deserve to be held in 
perpetual esteem, especially in view of the difficulties 



THE MAXDARIX VER5I0X 255 



Dr. V. :~r 
becai!5e :; '. 



We will aHofw 
: : the AmericE: 



^56 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

large, representative committees were appointed by 
the conference, one on Mandarin and one on Wen-K. 
I was a member of both these committees. Each 
committee had a number of meetings, in which the 
subject was freely and fully discussed in all its bear- 
ings. It was evident that there was a general desire 
for a version in simple Wen-H, and, the difficulties 
being less in regard to the work already done, a con- 
clusion was first reached in regard to this version. 
In Mandarin the difficiilties were greater. 

An agreement, however, was reached. The version 
in the higher classic style then gave the most trouble, 
but a satisfactory basis for this also was agreed upon; 
and the reports as to all three versions were adopted 
imanimously by the conference. In the same letter 
he says: '^I worked hard for these results, and felt 
no small satisfaction in seeing such perfect imanimity 
in the adoption of the plan proposed. I have never 
done anything in which I felt more the guiding hand 
of God than in drawing up and carrying through this 
plan.*' 

The selection of translators for each of the projected 
new versions was handed over respectively to execu- 
tive committees; and Dr. Mateer was appointed on 
that having charge of the Mandarin, and made 
chairman of it. He heard that he was talked of as 
one of the revisers for that version, but as yet he had 
not decided what was his duty, if chosen. It will 
again be best here to take up from one of his letters the 
thread of the narrative. Under date of December 13, 
1890, he writes to Dr. Nevius: 



THE MANDARIN VERSION 257 

I can truly say that before I went to the conference 
I never even dreamed of what has come to pass. It 
never occurred to me, before the conference, that I 
should take any promuient part in the matter of 
Bible translation. I felt that education was the only 
field in which I should come to the front. I was never 
in my hfe so providentially led as I was in this matter. 
I was selected chairman of the Mandarin Executive 
Committee and have been pushing the getting of 
translators. The first few months were spent in cor- 
responding and comparing notes as to men. We took 
a ballot recently, which resulted in the election of 
five, ... I being the only one who received a 
unanimous vote. We are now voting for the others, 
to make up the seven. . . . My book of ''Man- 
darin Lessons" has no doubt brought me forward, 
and its preparation has in a measure fitted me for the 
work. My personal preferences are against the work 
of translation, and I would fain decline it, but I don't 
see how I can in view of the circumstances. I feel 
my incompetency, especially in Greek and Hebrew, 
and you may be sure I am very loath to give up the 
educational and hterary work on my hands. Much 
of it is half finished. But if the Mandarin Bible is to 
be made, some one must do it; moreover, the men 
who do it must have the confidence of the missionary 
body; otherwise it will be a failure. As it is, circum- 
stances have led me to the position, and the strong 
opinion of the men on the committee, and of others, 
leads me to feel that I cannot Hghtly refuse. 

In November, 1891, the revisers met at Shanghai. 
Dr. Mateer, in a letter written in the following Jan- 
uary, said: 



17 



258 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

The scheme for the revision of the Chinese Bible 
set on foot by the conference is now fairly organized, 
and approved by the three great Bible societies. 
The work of pushing the organization has fallen 
largely on me, and I feel no small sense of rehef now 
that it is successfully accomplished. Contrary to my 
own desire, I am compelled to take a share as one of 
the revisers in Mandarin; not that I do not relish 
the work, but because it will of necessity interfere 
with many of my cherished plans. We had a meeting 
of all the revisers of the three versions, and it was a 
fairly harmonious and an altogether successful meet- 
ing. A great work is before us which I trust we may, 
in the good providence of God, be enabled to accom- 
plish. 

The interval of about a year and a half between the 
general conference and the organization just men- 
tioned was required because of the difficulty of 
selecting and securing the translators. These for 
the Mandarin version, as that body was originally 
constituted, consisted of Henry Blodgett, George 
Owen, Chauncey Goodrich, J. R. Hykes, Thomas 
Bramfitt, J. L. Nevius and C. W. Mateer. During 
the years in which this work was continued there were 
in the membership so many changes caused by death, 
removal and other causes, that Dr. Goodrich and Dr. 
Mateer alone continued from the beginning until the 
translation of the New Testament, the part of the 
Bible first revised, was tentatively completed. Mr. 
Bailer of the China Inland Mission stands next in 
length of service, having joined the committee in 1900. 



THE MANDARIN VERSION 259 

Dr. Mateer in the work of revision had the assistance 
of two Chinese Christians whose services were so large 
and valuable that they deserve more than a passing 
mention here. In a recent letter Dr. Goodrich pays 
them the following just tribute : 

Dr. Mateer, in the work of rendering the Scriptures 
into a universal Mandarin colloquial, had two ex- 
ceptionally fine teachers. The first was Mr. Tsou Li 
Wen, an ordained pastor, who left his parish to en- 
gage in this work. Mr. Tsou was trained by Dr. 
Mateer in his college, receiving his theological training 
under Drs. Nevius, Mateer and others. He was a 
man of beautiful spirit, discriminating mind, and 
a fine sense of language. He was also a m.an of 
indomitable perseverance. After a strenuous day's 
work of eight hours or more, he would often toil by 
himself far into the night, seeking for some phrase 
or phrases which expressed more exactly or more 
beautifully the meaning of the original. And before 
the final review, both he and my own lamented 
teacher (Chang Hsi Hsin) would bestow the greatest 
pains, in the hours when they should have been sleep- 
ing, in a careful inspection of the work. Thus did 
Mr. Tsou toil, while separated from his family for 
long periods of time; his work on Bible revision being 
as truly a labor of love as that of any member of the 
committee. 

But alas! Mr. Tsou's life burned out all too soon 
in his exhausting labors. But how I should like to 
see his crown, and his shining face I 

Happily for the work. Dr. Mateer had another 
scholar, trained also in his school, Mr. Wang Yuan 
Teh, a young man of keen, incisive, logical mind, 
who had read all the best books in the Mandarin 



260 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

colloquial. Mr. Wang was quick to see any fault in 
the structure of a sentence, and insistent on its being 
put right. He also worked most faithfully in this 
translation, refusing offers which came to him of a 
salary several times the amount he received. I think 
he was held, partly by Dr. Mateer's personahty, which 
drew him strongly, and partly by his own love for 
the work itself. When the chariot of fire came for 
Dr. Mateer, he left us, much to our regret and loss. 

The work of these two men has entered largely into 
the present translation of the New Testament, and 
the influence of their work, as of Dr. Mateer's, abides, 
and wdll continue to be felt, till the great work of 
rendering the Bible into a universal Mandarin is 
finished. 



Dr. Mateer himself, in the preface to his "Mandarin 
Lessons," makes acknowledgment of the valuable 
services rendered in the preparation of that work by 
Tsou Li Wen, and also by his own wife. 

The Mandarin Committee, at the meeting in 1891, 
after organization, proceeded to divide up the books 
of the New Testament among themselves for work, 
and adopted a plan of procedure. Each man was 
first carefully to revise or translate his own portion; 
and then to send it around to the others, who were to 
go over it, and write their suggestions of emendations, 
each in a column parallel to the proposed text. Next, 
the original translator was to take these emendations, 
and with their help was to prepare a text in Mandarin 
for submission to the entire committee. Broadly 
speaking, this was the method pursued to the end, 



I 



THE MANDARIN VERSION 261 

though with some modifications compelled or sug- 
gested by experience. It was hoped that compara- 
tively rapid progress would be made; but in reahty 
the committee did not come together again until 
September, 1898; and even then, only the Acts of 
the Apostles was ready for general revision. For this 
delay there were various causes, such as the death 
of Dr. Nevius and the resignation of others, and the 
absence of Dr. Mateer on furlough home; but the 
chief cause was that every member was burdened with 
so much other work that only a fraction of his time 
could be given to this duty. Dr. Mateer, for example, 
found himself loaded down with other hterary and 
missionary labors. At the meeting held at Tengchow, 
in 1898, he was elected chairman of the committee. 
This was an honor, but it also carried with it peculiar 
duties which materially added to his burden. The 
committee could muster only five members for that 
sitting, but they proceeded with their work, and at 
the end of two months and a half they finished the book 
of Acts; and then they separated. 

That meeting by actual experience brought out 
distinctly not only the difficulties of necessity arising 
from the translation of particular books of the Bible, 
and indeed of every verse; but also others of a more 
general character, some of which had previously been 
more or less clearly seen. Should the new version 
take as its basis one or more of the translations already 
in existence; or should it go back straight to the 
original Greek, and use the existing translations 



26^ CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

merely as helps? In any case, constant reference to 
the original was a necessity. For this, which of the 
published texts should be accepted as the standard? 
The meeting also disclosed a wide divergence of opin- 
ion as to the style of Mandarin that ought to be 
employed. On that subject in 1900, Dr. Mateer 
expressed himself fully and strongly, in an article 
published in the '' Chinese Recorder." He said: 

The Mandarin Bible, in order to fulfill its purpose, 
should be such as can be readily understood by all 
when heard as read aloud by another. The funda- 
mental distinction between Wen-li and Mandarin is 
that the former is addressed to the eye, the latter to 
the ear. In all Protestant churches the reading of 
the Scriptures has, from the first, constituted an 
important part of public worship. In order that this 
reading may serve the purpose intended, the Scripture 
must be so translated as to be intelligible to the com- 
mon people. Only thus will they hear it, as they did 
its Author, ^'gladly." It is not enough that those who 
know "characters" should be able to read it intelli- 
gently, but rather that those who do not know 
"characters," and who in fact constitute by far the 
greater part of the Chinese people, should be able 
to understand it when it is read to them. Here then 
is the standard to be aimed at, — a version that rep- 
resents the Chinese language as it is spoken, and 
addresses itself to the ear rather than to the eye. 

He summarized the chief characteristics of the 
proper style thus: that words should be employed 
which the people who commonly use Mandarin can 
understand; that sentences should conform to the 



THE MANDARIN VERSION 

model of the spoken language; and, concerning both 
of these requisites, that such care should be taken as 
to brevity, the order of words and clauses, the con- 
nective particles, and the evident movement of thought 
as expressed, that the Chinese would recognize in it 
a people's book; and yet one that is free from un- 
dignified colloquiaHsms and locaHsms. All this he 
held up as an ideal, not likely to be fully realized by 
any set of translators, but if distinctly aimed at, more 
sure to be nearly approached. Toward the close of 
the work on the Mandarin version still another ques- 
tion of a general nature arose. Throughout most of 
their labors the committee had before them the 
revised easy Wen-li translation, and for a part of the 
time they also had the revised classic Wen-li Bible. 
Ought the three revised Chinese versions to be har- 
monized, so as to eliminate all variations? That, of 
course, would be ideal. On this question the report 
of the Mandarin Committee, which was as to sub- 
stance prepared by the chairman, took the negative. 
It said: 

The differences are not great, and where they exist, 
the versions will serve Chinese students as a sort of 
commentary. There are a multitude of questions 
in Bibhcal interpretation which no translation can 
settle once for all. Moreover, ninety-nine out of a 
hundred of those who use the Mandarin will never 
look at any other translation. Two versions in 
perfect accord seem like a fine product, but it is 
difficult of reahzation. An attempt at reconciHng the 
present versions would develop many difficulties. A 



264 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

Mandarin sentence especially is not easy to tamper 
with. The change of a single word would often 
dislocate a long sentence, and necessitate retranslation 
and adjustment to the context. 

The Mandarin committee of translators continued 
their tentative revision of the New Testament until 
late in 1906, a period of fifteen years, counting from 
the date of their first meeting for organization and 
assignment of specific duties. They held eight differ- 
ent sessions, being almost one each year after they 
were ready with actual work ; and none of the sessions 
were shorter than two and a half months, and one of 
them stretched out to six months. They assembled 
at Tengchow, near Peking, at Shanghai, and most 
frequently at Chefoo. In the final report is the 
record: "The chairman can say for himself that he 
has given the equivalent of about seven years all-day 
labor to this work. He was present at every meeting, 
and first and last missed but one day's session." 
Each of the meetings took on distinctive incidental 
associations. The third was held at Shanghai, and 
from December, 1900, ran over some months into 
1901. At that time, on account of the Boxer uprising, 
missionaries were temporarily there as refugees from 
all the provinces directly concerned in the version. 
The sittings were in a small upper room in the Union 
Church, which came to be called "the Jerusalem 
Chamber," and visitors were many. They saw two 
rows of men, one on each side of a long table, yellow 
faces being sandwiched alternately with white, as each 



THE MANDARIN VERSION ^5 

translator had, as usual in this work, his Chinese 
assistant at his side. Often the discussions were 
carried on in Mandarin, so that these assistants might 
be able to understand and pass their opinion. Inci- 
dentally it may be noted that besides his work on the 
revision. Dr. Mateer often met with the refugee 
missionaries during this period and greatly gratified 
them by participating in the discussion of practical 
problems. 

After the Mateers returned from their furlough, the 
sessions were all held at Chefoo, first in one of the 
rooms of the China Inland Mission Sanitarium, and 
later in a large upper room in the Missionary Home, 
overlooking the bay. Usually at the commencement 
of their meetings they sat together for three hours in 
the morning, and reser\^ed the rest of the day for such 
private study as they wished to make; but as the 
time wore on they would increase the sittings to as 
many hours also in the afternoon, and crowd the 
private review into such odd moments as were left. 
To anyone, these protracted labors on such a work 
must have become exceedingly tedious and almost 
irksome; but to no one was it more so than to Dr. 
Mateer. He knew Mandarin almost as if it had been 
his native tongue; but the Mandarin which he knew 
had often to be modified and expressions adjusted, so 
that a Scripture written in it would suit other re- 
gions of China as well as those with which he was 
familiar. In writing his '' Mandarin Lessons" and in 
preparing his educational books he had only to ascer- 



;V 



me CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

tain to the best of his abihty how to express his ideas 
in Chinese, and that was the end of the search; but 
here he had to do his best, and then submit his product 
to the opinion of others, and often with the result of 
changes which did not commend themselves ' to his 
preference. Yet, on his return home from the sittings 
he would say: ^'I ought not to complain. I get my 
way oftener than any other man does. Only I 
cannot help thinking of the work I have laid aside 
unfinished in order to do this." After each meeting 
the year's work was printed, marked ''Tentative 
Edition," and with a slip inviting criticism was sent 
to the missionaries in north China and Manchuria. 
These criticisms were all to be canvassed before the 
edition could be printed that was to be presented to 
the Centenary Conference, to which they were to 
report. 

The final meeting for the tentative revision of the 
New Testament lasted for more than five months, 
and the work was pushed with even more than the 
usual vigor. The Centenary Missionary Conference 
for China was only a year ahead when they began. 
After the conference the revision was to run the 
gauntlet of criticisms, and these were to be canvassed; 
and thus at last the revision was to take its permanent 
form. Mrs. Mateer gives the following graphic 
account of one of the closing incidents of that session. 

Passage had already been engaged for the Goodrich 
family on a steamer sailing north. The baggage was 
all carried down, the family all waited on the upper 



THE MANDARIN VERSION 267 

veranda, with hats on, and the Doctor's hat was ready 
for him to seize as soon as he should get out of the 
meeting. The "rickshaw" men were waiting, ready 
to run with their loads. But still no sound of ap- 
proaching feet! Finally, as it got dangerously near 
the hour of saiHng, Mrs. Goodrich said, "I must go 
and hurry them up." So she marched boldly down 
the hall, listened a minute at the door, and came back 
with her fingers on her lips. '' Those dear men are pray- 
ing," she whispered; and tears filled our eyes as our 
hearts silently joined in the prayer. Of course, every 
morning session was opened with prayer; but this 
was the consummation of all these years of toil, the 
offering of the finished work at the altar. 

Although the committee completed their revision 
at that session, so far as this was possible until the 
conference should meet and approve or disapprove it, 
there was very considerable work of a tedious nature 
left to Dr. Mateer to perform. The finishing touches 
yet to be put upon portions of the version were not a 
few; but the thing that required of him the most 
protracted and dehcate attention was the punctuation. 
For this he introduced a new system which seemed to 
him to be best for the Chinese language, and which 
can be estimated fairly only by a scholar in that 
tongue. To him also as chairman came the criticisms 
which were invited from all quarters, most of which 
were welcomed, but some of which touched him to 
the quick. At length, in the spring of 1907, the 
conference assembled at Shanghai, and the report of 
the Committee of Revisers was made to that body. 



268 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

He wrote to a friend in the United States concerning 
it: ''We had a grand missionary conference in Shang- 
hai, which, of course, I attended. There was more 
unanimity and less discussion than in the former 
conference." The report received a hearty approval, 
and the version was started on its course of examina- 
tion by all concerned, as preparatory to its final 
completion. It was issued from the press at Shanghai 
in 1 910. It was called a revision, the aim being to 
offer it, not so much as a rival to the older versions, 
as an improvement upon them; but in reahty it was 
an almost entirely new translation, though in making 
it advantage had been taken of the valuable pioneering 
done by the others. Writing to a friend after the 
conference had adjourned, Dr. Mateer frankly said: 

Please note that we still have opportunity for final 
revision, in which many defects will be eliminated. 
There are places not a few with which I myself am 
dissatisfied, many of which I see can be improved. 
I refer especially to texts that are excessively literal, 
and where foreign idioms are used to the detriment 
of the style. It must also be remembered that many 
terms and expressions that seem strange and perhaps 
inexpressive at first will on further use seem good and 
even admirable. Every new translation must have 
a Httle time to win its way. That our version will 
appeal strongly to the great mass of the Chinese 
church I have no doubt. 

During the long years he was engaged in this great 
undertaking he learned some valuable lessons con- 
cerning the translation of the Scriptures. He came 



THE MANDARIN VERSION 

to speak of it as an art, for which special training and 
experience are needed. In an article which appeared 
after his death, in the November issue of "The Chinese 
Recorder" for that year, he gave at length a discussion 
of "Lessons Learned in Translating the Bible into 
Mandarin." He pointed out difficulties that hamper 
the making of a version in the Mandarin as compared 
with the Wen-H in either of its forms. To appreciate 
these, one needs to be a master in those tongues. 
But he also indicated others that He in the way of a 
translation of the Scriptures into any sort of Chinese. 
Many of the very ideas of the Bible on moral and 
spiritual subjects had never entered the Chinese mind, 
and consequently there are no suitable words or 
phrases to express them. Just as western science has 
to invent its own terms when it enters China, so also 
mthin hmits must the translator of the Bible introduce 
a vocabulary suited for his purpose. He beHeved that 
in the China of to-day prejudice had so far begun to 
yield that this could be effectively and wisely done. 
In fact, each branch of modern thought that has been 
grafted on the stem of the Chinese has already brought 
with it new words, so that hundreds of these have 
recently been coined and are on the tongues of the 
leaders. Along with the lack of an adequate vocabu- 
lary goes another thing that adds to the difficulty. 
In the translation of other books the main need is to 
express the thought, and in doing this considerable 
freedom is usually tolerated; but accuracy of ex- 
pression, because of the very nature of the Bible, is 



^ 



270 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

of the first importance in a version. Besides, the 
Chinese Christians seem especially disposed to insist 
on this quality. The tendency of a translator is apt 
to be toward adapting the Scripture to what is con- 
ceived to be the taste of the Chinese, to write up to 
the style with which the educated are famihar, or 
down to the level of the imeducated speech. Another 
defect is to magnify or to minify peculiarities of ex- 
pression originating in the region where the Scriptures 
were written. Dr. Mateer thought that he recognized 
very distinctly tendencies of this sort in the older 
versions, though abating in more recent times. His 
article concluded as follows: 

The Bible does not need any doctoring at the hands 
of translators. The Chinese church is entitled to 
have the Bible just as it is, in a strictly faithful and 
accurate translation. This they demand of us who 
translate it for them. They do not want to know 
what the writers would have said if they had been 
Chinese, but what they actually did say. This is 
the manner in which the Chinese who have learned 
EngKsh are now translating foreign books into their 
own language, and this is very evidently the spirit of 
the times. The EngHsh Bible, especially the Revised 
Version, is a monument of careful and accurate trans- 
lation. Translators into Chinese cannot do better 
than follow in the same line. I have a number of 
times heard students when using commentaries, or 
hearing lectures on various portions of Scripture, 
express their surprise and dissatisfaction that the 
Bible had not been more accurately translated. I 
have known Chinese preachers, when quoting a text 



THE MANDARIN VERSION 271 

which had a marginal reading sa\ing that the original 
says so and so, to remark v^ith strong disapproval, 
*'If the original says so, why not translate it so, and 
be done with it?" On one occasion in our conamittee, 
when a question was raised about gi\"ing a metaphor 
straight or paraphrasing into a comparison, one of our 
Hterar}' helpers said ^ith vigorous emphasis: ''Do 
you suppose that we Chinese cannot understand and 
appreciate a metaphor? Our books are full of them, 
and new ones are welcome." If we do not give the 
Chinese the Bible as it is, they will condemn us, and 
before long will do the work for themselves. 

In conclusion, it is worthy of remark that no one 
man can make a satisfactory translation of the Bible. 
There are limitations to ever}' man's knowledge of 
truth and of language. Ever}' man's ^dsion is dis- 
torted in some of its aspects. This is a lesson we have 
been learning day by day, and are still learning. If 
any man wishes to j&nd out his limitations in these 
respects, let him join a translating committee. 

With regard to the difficulties in the way of this 
re\'ision. Dr. Goodrich thus expresses himself: 

No literar}' work of such pecuhar difficulty has been 
undertaken in China since the ffi^st translation of the 
Scriptures by ^Morrison. To produce a Bible whose 
language shall run close to the original, simple enough to 
be understood by ordinarv* persons when read aloud in 
the church or in the home, and yet chaste m diction; 
this work to be done by a committee chosen from 
widely distant locahties, — from Peking on the north- 
east, to Kneichow iu the southwest, — might well 
frighten any body of men. For the ffi-st years together 
the work was almost the despair of the commiittee. 
Their efforts to make themselves mutually imderstood 



9n% CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

and to unite on a rendering were often immensely 
prolonged and exasperatingly amusing. 



But they were trying to do for China what Wyclif 
did for the English and what Luther did for the Ger- 
mans, — to make a translation of the Bible into a 
vernacular form of national speech which would be 
everywhere intelligible; and they took courage and 
pressed forward slowly but surely toward their goal. 
In doing this they not only have accomplished the end 
immediately sought, but they also have put into the 
hands of the people at large a model which will largely 
mold all their coming Hterature. 

The conference at Shanghai in 1907 approved the 
report on the New Testament and decided to proceed 
to the revision of the Old Testament, and appointed 
an executive committee to select the men to do this 
work. The members chosen were the same five who 
had served toward the close of the revision of the 
New Testament, with the exception of a new translator 
needed because one of the old committee had gone 
home. Dr. Mateer was especially anxious that they 
might be saved from the necessity of breaking in and 
training several inexperienced members. Of course, 
he had foreseen that he would probably be selected, 
but when informed that this had been done he reserved 
his decision until he knew of whom besides himself the 
committee was to consist. To Dr. Goodrich of the 
American Board, with whom he had been so intimately 
associated, he wrote several times, urging him to 



THE MANDARIN VERSION 273 

accept; and in one of these letters he said: ^' There 
is a variety of reasons why I am perhaps as loath 
as you are to do this work. So far as money, reputa- 
tion, or personal taste goes, I should rather do other 
work. But then it seems as if duty calls to this. 
Neither you nor I can ignore the fact that the experi- 
ence and training of all these years have fitted us in a 
special manner for this work. We can do it better 
and faster than new men." He was again made chair- 
man, and as such he proceeded to distribute the first 
of the revision work, for which he selected Genesis and 
certain of the Psalms. He began his personal labors 
at the opening of the year, and in the summer the 
committee assembled at Chefoo to consider what had 
then been accomplished. The Goodrich and the 
Mateer families went into residence during their 
projected stay, and took for this purpose a house 
occupied usually as headquarters for the school for 
the deaf, Mrs. Goodrich, because of the condition of 
Mrs. Mateer's health, having charge of the house- 
keeping. The meetings were held in a little chapel 
of the China Inland Mission, in the neighboring 
valley. It was while so situated that Dr. Mateer was 
stricken with his fatal illness. 

In a letter which he addressed "To the dear ones 
at home," on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, 
he said: 

God has also blessed me in enabling me to accom- 
plish several of the leading purposes of my life. From 
my boyhood I longed for a liberal education. My 
i8 



274 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

next great desire was to give at least forty years to 
work in China. Soon after I came to China I began 
educational work on a very small scale, but aspired 
to raise up a college that might be a power for good. 
I early formed the purpose of becoming an adept in 
the spoken language, and in aiming at this saw the 
need of a text-book for learning the language, and 
set about making it. All these purposes I have been 
enabled, by the blessing of God, to accomplish. My 
great work for the last ten years has been to lead in 
the translation of the Bible into Mandarin. This 
has been a most trying and laborious task, which is 
not yet completed. The New Testament is nearly 
done, but whether the Old Testament will be com- 
pleted, who can tell? My desire and hope is to com- 
plete it. To prepare a mature and approved transla- 
tion of the Bible for the use of two hundred and eighty 
millions of people will be for the glory of God in China. 



XIV 

INCIDENTS BY THE WAY 

"There are many trials and self-denials in missionary life, 
but there are also not a few compensations and some ad- 
vantages." — LETTER "to THE DEAR ONES AT HOME," at Ms 

seventieth birthday. 

THE statement just quoted is general, and 
admits of appKcation in the case of every 
faithful foreign missionary; but Dr. Mateer 
meant it especially as an expression of his own ex- 
perience. In the story of his life work as already 
here told we have seen it constantly exemplified. 
There, however, still remain other instances that 
deserve permanent record. In speaking of them as 
"incidents by the way," and in gathering them into 
a single chapter, I do not mean to indicate that they 
are unimportant. Some of them concerned the depths 
of his life. But his work after he reached China was 
chiefly along the lines that have been traced in the 
preceding chapters, and those matters now to be 
related, however important, were incidents by the 
way. 

Of the trials that overtook him, none were so keenly 
felt as his bereavements. Only two or three of these 
can be mentioned here, — such as occurred within the 
circle of his own relatives out in China. The first 

275 



276 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

was the death of Mrs. Capp, the sister of Mrs. Julia 
Mateer. This occurred on February 17, 1882, at 
Tengchow. She went down into the shadows with 
the tender ministrations of her sister and of Dr. 
Mateer. In writing to a brother of her deceased 
husband, he said: 

On Sabbath afternoon, — yesterday, — we buried 
her on the hill west of the city, with other missionary 
friends who have gone before her. She was greatly 
beloved by the Chinese, and there were few of the 
Christians here who did not weep to part with her. 
Mr. Mills conducted the funeral service in Enghsh, 
and made some excellent remarks, admirably adapted 
to the occasion. One of our native elders made a 
very effective address in Chinese. Her work is done, 
and it is well done. Her memory will not soon die 
amongst the Chinese in this city and neighborhood. 
We will miss her, oh, so much, — her help, her counsel, 
her genial society, her spiritual power! Her school 
will miss her the most: her place in it cannot be filled. 
She was ready to die, and strong in faith, yet she 
longed to live, not that she might enjoy life, but, as 
she several times said, that she might save some more 
souls. She repeatedly assured us of her joy that she 
had come to China, and declared that she had never 
counted it a sacrifice, but a privilege. I told the 
Chinese over her coffin to imitate her as she did 
Christ, — her zeal and earnestness in all duty, and her 
untiring endeavor and desire to save souls. 

Sixteen years later, almost to a day, — February 16, 
1898, — Julia finished her earthly work and entered 
into the heavenly rest. I have already mentioned 



INCIDENTS BY THE WAY 277 

that sorrowful event in the Hfe of Dr. Mateer, and 
said something of her character. Her biography is 
soon to be given to the world in a distinct volume. 
Under these circumstances it would be superfluous 
to make any extended record concerning her here. 
It is due, however, to her husband to quote at least 
a part of one paragraph from a brief memoir of her 
written by him shortly after her death. In telling 
of her varied labors and achievements he said this, 
which so far as it was known to her in Hfe, must have 
been an immeasurable satisfaction: 

Before the end of her first year in China she took an 
active part in opening the little school which ultimately 
grew into the Shantung College. To this school she 
gave the best energies of her Hfe, and to her in no small 
degree is due its continued success. She was an accom- 
pHshed teacher, especiaUy of young boys. . . . 
She did far more than teach, during the earHer years 
of the school; she did fuUy two thirds of the work 
involved, giving her time day and night to every 
detail. She kept the accounts, looked after food and 
clothing and a hundred nameless things. To the 
end she was the confidante and adviser of aU, in their 
troubles, trials, and plans, in their marriage aUiances, 
and in their spiritual exercises. The thoughtful care 
she gave to all her pupils when they were sick en- 
deared her to the hearts of aU who were in the coUege. 
She studied medicine on her own account, and had 
no mean skiU as a physician. AU the sick in the 
native church, and all the sick in her own neighbor- 
hood, heathen and Christian, came to her, and she 
never refused a call. There is no graduate of the 
Tengchow CoUege who does not have a place for her 



278 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

in his heart, close by the side of that of his own mother. 
During her illness there is probably not one of these 
young men, scattered as they are over all north China, 
who did not pray earnestly for her, many of them in 
public as well as in private; and many of them have 
written her the most anxious and affectionate letters. 
On her sixtieth birthday, last July, the students of 
the college and graduates with their most imposing 
ceremony presented her with a decorated silk gown, 
and placed a large title, or sign, in gilt letters over the 
front door of the house, ^^Character-nourishing aged 
mother J '' It was the proudest day of her life when 
these young men presented her with this most fitting 
token of their loving reverence and esteem. 

In view of the hatred and prejudice which con- 
fronted her and her husband when they arrived in 
Tengchow nearly thirty-five years before, it must have 
almost seemed to her Hke the illusion of a dream. 

We have previously seen that Dr. Mateer's brother 
John became the superintendent of the mission 
press at Shanghai in 1872. He continued in that 
position until 1876, when he returned home. For a 
good many years he was in business in the United 
States, and then he returned to China and took charge 
of the mission press of the American Board at Peking. 
In April, 1900, Dr. Mateer was called by telegraph to 
come to that city as quickly as possible, on account of 
the dangerous illness of his brother; but John died 
the day before his arrival. In a letter to the sur- 
viving brothers and sisters Dr. Mateer, after describ- 
ing the funeral services, added: 



INCIDENTS BY THE WAY 279 

It is evident that his work here in the press was 
highly appreciated. He was also held in high esteem 
by the members of the other missions, and was well 
and favorably known in the American legation. 
Several of the speakers said that John's Kfe was a 
well-romided and successful one, achieved in the face 
of great difficulties. From the standpoint of worldly 
wisdom his Kfe could scarcely be called successful; 
but from the spiritual, it certainly was. In this 
regard he was probably superior to any member of 
the family. His mind was clear to the end and filled 
with confident hope. As his disease grew more 
serious he showed no fear, and to the last he faced 
death without a tremor. May God give unto each of 
us who remain grace to face the king of terrors mth 
the same triumphant faith. We buried him in the 
foreign cemetery, just north of the city, in the most 
beautifid spot in that cemetery, and just by the side 
of Rev. Mr. Morrison of our mission. 

It did not fall to the lot of Dr. Mateer to have any 
experience of perilous adventure and of hairbreadth 
escapes such as have come into the fives of missionaries 
in uncivilized lands, and even in China. Still he by 
no means escaped serious risks. In his earfier itinera- 
tions he was several times threatened with attacks 
from individuals or crowds, and sometimes he armed 
himself in order to defend himself from assault. The 
second year of his residence in Tengchow, because of 
negotiations going forward for the renting of a house 
near the south gate, a meeting of as many as a thou- 
sand people composing the most influential clan in 
the city assembled in one of the temples, and de- 



280 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

manded of the officials permission to kill the man who 
controlled the house, and the foreigners; but the 
excitement passed away without any open outbreak. 
In the summer of 1867 there was a great scare at 
Tengchow over the approach of a body of ''rebels." 
These were in reahty robbers, consisting of the dregs 
left behind at the suppression of the Tai-Ping re- 
beUion, who burned and laid waste large districts 
of countr}^, and mercilessly slaughtered the people. 
Their approach to Tengchow had so often been re- 
ported that nobody knew what to anticipate; but 
at length they, sure enough, made their appearance 
in the neighboring country. The inhabitants crowded 
into the city by thousands, bringing with them 
donkeys, cattle, and everything that could be hastily 
removed, so that not only the houses, but the streets 
and vacant places were crammed with them, the mis- 
sion premises not being excepted. Juha found in the 
situation a fine opportunity to give the gospel to the 
women; and her husband w^as equally diKgent among 
the men, though he was unfortunately hampered by 
the absence of his Chinese assistant. A British war 
vessel called early in the scare and offered to remove 
the missionaries to a place of safety; and later the 
*' Wyoming," a United States naval vessel, anchored 
out in the bay, where she could bring her guns to 
play, if necessary, for the protection of American 
citizens. Happily, after five days of this state of 
things the rebels again vanished, but not Tvithout 
lea\dng in their trail sickness and desolation. The 



INCIDENTS BY THE WAY 281 

missionaries do not seem to have been much alarmed 
at any time during the excitement, though no one 
could tell what might happen. 

In 1870 there was a cruel massacre of a large number 
of French Roman Catholic missionaries and of some 
others at Tientsin, and much valuable mission prop- 
erty was destroyed. The news of this spread rapidly 
over north China and kindled the animosity of the 
natives against foreigners to such a degree that the 
situation in many locaHties became very dangerous. 
At Tengchow rumors of plots to wipe out the mis- 
sionaries there were frequent, and the native Chris- 
tians and others who were friendly communicated 
to them information that justified serious apprehen- 
sion. A meeting of all the members of- both the 
Baptist and the Presbyterian station was called, and 
then another the next day, and by an almost unani- 
mous vote it was declared that it was the duty of all 
to take refuge in Chef 00 or elsewhere until the danger 
was substantially ended. Dr. Mateer in these meet- 
ings advocated brief delay and further inquiry, but 
when he found himself in a minority of one, he yielded 
his judgment to that of all the others. Just as soon 
as possible a message was sent to Chefoo for a ship 
to come up and take the famihes to that place, and a 
couple of British vessels promptly responded. All 
valuables that could be quickly packed and easily 
removed were shipped; and the premises at Tengchow 
were placed in charge of as trusty Chinese as could be 
obtained for the purpose, and a promise was given 



282 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

by the chief official of the city that he would see that 
constables watched the property. Dr. Mateer did 
not go on the ship, but remained a day along with a 
Baptist missionary in order to complete the arrange- 
ments required for the proper keeping of the houses 
a'nd goods, and then he followed on horseback down 
to Chef 00. The prompt appearance of the ships in 
the harbor and the removal of the missionaries seem 
to have made a most wholesome impression on the 
people, and the excitement soon subsided, and a 
rather general desire prevailed, even among the non- 
Christian Chinese, that they should return. The 
American minister at Peking also greatly gratified 
the refugees and their fellow-laborers from the United 
States by the to them somewhat novel experience of 
his taking an earnest practical interest in their wel- 
fare. He advised them to return to Tengchow, and 
solicited the privilege of sending them back on an 
American warship. After an absence of about a 
month Dr. Mateer went thither on a preliminary 
trip, and was pleasantly surprised at the friendly 
attitude of the people. In due time the other mis- 
sionaries and their families followed ; but at the meet- 
ing of the synod which ensued a Kttle later he was 
compelled, after a brief sojourn at Tengchow, to go 
down to Shanghai and remain there for a year and 
a half in charge of the mission press. Just how real 
was the danger that caused this temporary flight to 
Chefoo, and how imminent, is a secret that perhaps 
no man clearly knew, and which certainly the mis- 



INCIDENTS BY THE WAY 283 

sionaries never ascertained. Writing in his Journal, 
just after his return, concerning his reluctant acquies- 
cence in the vote of all except himself in favor of going, 
he says: 

Nevertheless acquiescence was one of the hardest 
trials of my Hfe. My mind was filled that night with 
a tumult of emotions; and I did not sleep a wink till 
the morning light dawned. I did not know how 
much I loved Tengchow, and perhaps I overrated the 
damage our leaving would do to our own cause here, 
especially to our schools. I am not sure, however, 
that I did. The future remains to be seen. God 
may, and I trust he will, turn it to be a blessing both 
to us and to the native Christians. Aside from the 
question of the actual amount of danger at that time 
I felt a strong aversion to going in any case, unless 
when my hfe was in such instant peril that there was 
no possible doubt. ... I am not yet convinced, 
however, and though I do not wish to make any rash 
vows, yet I think that I will not fly from Tengchow 
again unless there is a great deal more imminent 
danger. 

When, in 1894-95, the war between Japan and China 
raged, Tengchow being a port on the sea, and not far 
from Japan, was of course likely to be a place directly 
involved in the hostihties. The missionaries elected 
to remain at their post, and asked the consular agent 
of the United States at Chef 00 to notify the proper 
military official of their presence, number, calling, 
and nationahty, and to say that in case of attack they 
would hoist the American flag over the mission prem- 
ises, and that if the Chinese found themselves imable 



284 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

to defend the city they would exert their influence to 
have it surrendered without loss of Kfe. The Jap- 
anese did come, and they, as a diversion from the 
seizure of Wei-hai-wei, bombarded the place on three 
successive days. As to this, Dr. ^lateer says in his 
autobiographical sketch for his college classmates, 
''I watched the progress of affairs from the lookout 
on top of my house, but escaped untouched, though 
eight shells fell close around the house, and one went 
over my head so close that the "^iad from it made me 
dodge." 

During the Boxer uprising of 1 899-1 900, though the 
movement originated in Shantung, the missionaries 
and native Christians of that pro\Tnce suffered less 
than in adjacent pro\inces. The reason for this is 
that after the murder of Brooks in 1S99, the anti- 
foreign governor, Yu Haien, was at the solicitation 
of the missionaries and the Foreign Office removed. 
Unfortunately he was not deposed, but was merely 
changed to Shansi. This accounts for the terrible 
carnage there. The new governor of Shantung, the 
since famous Yuan Shih K'ai, did his best to hold the 
Boxers in check in his own pro^ance, and in the main 
was successful. The prompt and efficient action of 
Consul Fowler, of Chef 00, in removing the mission- 
aries from the interior also helped to save life. Still 
it was bad enough in the western parts even of Shan- 
tung. The native Christians in many places were 
robbed, beaten, and so far as possible compelled by 
threat of death to disown their faith. The story of 



INCIDENTS BY THE WAY 285 

the destruction of the property of the mission at Wei 
Hsien, and the narrow escape of the missionaries, 
through the courage of one of their number, is about 
as thrilling as any that is told of that period of wide- 
spread burning and carnage. In the eastern side of 
the pro\dnce, beyond ominous excitement at such 
places as Tengchow and Chefoo, there was no serious 
disturbance. Probably this was due in part to the 
wholesome respect which the Chinese K\dng not too 
far from the sea had come to feel for foreign war 
vessels, and for the troops which they could promptly 
disembark. 

Just before the siege of Peking began Dr. Mateer 
had made his \^sit to that city, to bury his brother 
John. The earher part of 1900 he remained at Teng- 
chow quietly at his work, and sending his orders just 
as usual for suppHes needed by the college and per- 
sonally. In July, by order of the American consul, 
the missionaries were brought down to Chefoo on a 
gunboat. Dr. Mateer and ^Ir. Mason Wells, how- 
ever, Hngered behind for a while. It was vacation, 
and Dr. Mateer occupied his time with the Mandarin 
version. Among the Chinese a wild rumor gained 
some currency that he was leading an army of many 
thousand men to reheve Peking; and the fact that 
his fiancee was shut up there gave at least piquancy 
to the report. Later he went on down to Shanghai, 
and there spent six months on the Re\dsion Com- 
mittee; and so he did not get back to Tengchow until 
June, 1 901, when the Boxer uprising was at an end. 



CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

In a communication which he published in "The 
Herald and Presbyter" later in 1900, he gave at 
considerable length his views as to the causes of that 
dreadful outbreak. These do not differ essentially 
from the ideas which have come to be generally ac- 
cepted in the United States. The missionary propa- 
ganda he frankly acknowledges to have, by the very 
nature of its message, aroused the mahgnity of evil 
men; and this also to have been much aggravated by 
the habit of Roman CathoHcs of standing between 
their converts and the enforcement of Chinese laws; 
but he denied that this was the main cause. He 
holds that the qutbreak was chiefly due to the tradi- 
tional hatred of foreigners; to the territorial ag- 
gressions of the western nations in China; to the ill 
treatment of Chinese abroad and in their own ports 
by foreigners ; and last, but by no means leasts to the 
German operations in Shantung, consisting of their 
revenge for the murder of some German priests, the 
occupation of Kiao-chow, and the survey and build- 
ing of a railroad through the province. The high- 
handed encroachment of Russia in Manchuria and 
the construction of a railroad through that proviace, 
and the guarding of it by Russian troops, added fuel 
to the flames. Summing up, he says: "The whole 
movement is anti-foreign, — against all nationalities 
and occupations, ministers of governments, consuls, 
merchants, missionaries, teachers, and engineers, 
railroads, telegraphs, churches, schools, and Christian 
converts, — everything in short that is in any way 



INCIDENTS BY THE WAY 287 

connected with the detested foreigner. It is the con- 
servatism of old China rising up and bracing itself 
for one last desperate struggle to suppress the new 
China that is supplanting it." 

Another of the trials that touched deeply his heart 
was the contact into which he was brought with the 
sufferings of the people through famine. In 1876, 
1877, and 1878 there was great scarcity in the general 
region of Tengchow, and consequently the prices for 
food rose so high that it was impossible for the poor 
to obtain the necessaries of life. Dr. Mateer, as also 
'Other missionaries, helped them to the extent of his 
abiHty, and became the almoner of charitable people 
who sent money from western lands to buy food for 
the famishing. But in 1889 he was brought face to 
face as never before in his life with destitution in 
China. The inconstancy of the Yellow River was 
one cause of the terrible disaster. Twice within 
about a third of the nineteenth centurv^ it had changed 
its bed; and as a consequence, finding its new channel 
too small to carry off the waters in times of hea\y and 
protracted rain, it had repeatedly flooded vast dis- 
tricts, often to a depth of several feet, carr>ang de- 
struction to the mud walls of the buildings and deso- 
lation to the cultivated ground. Drought also in a 
portion of northwestern Shantung had prevailed to 
such an extent as to prevent the growth and matur- 
ing of grains and vegetables. At last a chmax was 
reached by these disasters; and it was recognized by 
missionaries and others as so awful in its character 



288 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

and so vast in its sweep that a Famine Relief Com- 
mittee for Shantung was organized, and an appeal 
was made for help from Great Britain and the United 
States, and from the southern ports of China. At 
least two hundred thousand dollars came in response, 
and it was especially in connection with the distribu- 
tion of this that Dr. Mateer was brought into direct 
personal contact with the suffering. Districts were 
assigned to missionaries and others, and a careful 
canvass with the aid of reliable helpers was made. 
They ascertained that many tens of thousands of the 
people had wandered away from their homes, either 
to seek food or at least to leave to the more feeble and 
helpless such sustenance as might yet remain. No 
one ever was able to form a definite idea of the number 
who had died from starvation, either on their wander- 
ings or at their places of residence. The canvassers 
found multitudes trying to sustain hfe by eating the 
husks of grain, the seeds and roots of grasses and 
weeds, the bark of trees, and the blades of wheat. 
Some of those who had been considered rich had pro- 
vided themselves with poison, so as to take their own 
lives when they must come to the point where to live 
would be to see their children perish from starvation. 
The allowance furnished by the relief fund to an in- 
dividual was fixed at about a cent a day in all ordinary 
cases, and it was ascertained that on this allowance at 
least a hundred thousand lives were saved. On some 
old, faded Chinese sheets of paper, closely written with 
his own hand, the record of a part of Dr. Mateer's 



INCIDENTS BY THE WAY 289 

experiences in the famine canvass, out in northwestern 

Shantung, has come down to us. As it is all now a 
thing of the remote past, there probably would be no 
good in recording the dreadful details here. It is a 
story of children reduced to skeletons, eager to Hck 
up every crumb as big as a puihead that fell from the 
bit of coarse bread given them; of men and women 
falling do\\TL on their knees and begging for food for 
their famihes, and bursting into tears at the prospect 
of rehef ; of the sale of wives and daughters to procure 
something to eat; of unburied corpses, and of graves 
just filled with those who have perished. He said 
imder date of April 9, 1889: ^'It is the hardest work 
I ever did in my Hfe. To look all day long on a con- 
tinual succession of starving people, and to be beset 
by their entreaties to enroll more names than you can, 
is very hard on the nerves. There is no end to the 
starving people." Again, May 17, he said: ''After 
seven weeks and two days I am at last about to leave 
for Tsinan. We have now enrolled about thirty- 
three thousand, and the work of enrollment in this 
place is finished." \\Tiat as to the rehgious outcome? 
The impression made upon multitudes even in excess 
of those who received aid was most favorable to 
Christianity. One of the leading Chinese assistants 
in the work wrote to the people who furnished the 
aid: ''This must be the right religion. If not, why is 
it that the followers of other rehgions do not do such 
things?" Thus they were willing to examine into 
Christianity, and the more they examined, the more 
19 



290 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

they believed, until they were converted to Christ. As 
an ultimate outcome, several hundred were received 
into the churches. 

The controversies which he had with some of his 
fellow-missionaries in China were a serious trial to 
him. He was not by inclination "a man of war," 
but in connection with the prosecution of the mission- 
ary work in which he was engaged in common with 
his brethren, questions of great practical and im- 
mediate importance arose, and as to some of these he 
had strong convictions that were at variance with 
those of other wise and able men on the field. It was 
best for the cause that these should be thoroughly 
discussed, and there was much that could be fairly 
and earnestly urged upon either side. All that could 
be rightly demanded was that the "fighting" should 
be open and honorable, and that it should be con- 
ducted in such a manner as not to hinder the mission- 
ary work or to descend into personal controversy. 
Dr. Mateer, as to ability and efiiciency, stood in the 
front rank of those who were giving their hves to the 
evangelization of China. It was his duty to express 
his views on these questions, and to do this in such a 
way that no one could misapprehend them. If any 
fault could be found with him in this matter, perhaps 
it would be that he saw his own side so vividly that 
he was not always able to recognize the entire force 
of that which was said in favor of what ran counter 
to it. Those who knew him well and appreciated the 
greatness and tenderness of his heart waived the sting 



INCIDENTS BY THE WAY 291 

which sometimes seemed to be in his words ; but per- 
haps some others who were not so well acquainted 
with him occasionally winced under its pungency. 
Everyone who was concerned in these discussions, 
long ago has come to recognize him in these as an 
earnest, capable man, trying to do his duty as he 
saw it. 

By far the most protracted of these controversies 
was over the word that ought to be used in Chinese 
to express the idea of God. Under date of November 
4, 1865, he made this entry in his Journal: ''This 
week I had a note from Mr. Mills, saying that a 
proposition was current at Peking to get out a Union 
New Testament in Mandarin, and to use in it Tien 
Chu for God, and Sheng Shen for Holy Spirit, and 

that all but Mr. had signed it. I cannot sign 

it at all; I am utterly opposed to any such a pro- 
ceeding. I cannot conscientiously use these words." 
That was his first gun in a battle that for him com- 
pletely ended only with his life. His contributions 
to the discussion were sufficient to be in substance, 
as we have already seen, gathered into a separate 
volume. In 1907 his ''Letter Book" shows that he 
was still remonstrating against a request to the Bible 
societies to employ for God and for spirit Chinese 
terms that violated his convictions. His very last 
recorded utterance on the subject was in a letter dated 
November 17, 1907. In it he expresses his gratifica- 
tion that in an edition of the New Testament for 
China, issued by an English Bible society, they were 



CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

'' to use the terms Shen and Sheng Ling for God and 
Spirit." He added: "This suits me. These and 
these only are the right terms, and despite all appear- 
ances will ultimately win in the really orthodox and 
evangelistic church of China." It is not improbable 
that the drift of opinion for various reasons as to this 
was against him; but it was in this faith that he 
died. 

As to his part in the discussion concerning what 
came to be known as "Methods of Missions," no 
more need be said here than that the men who took 
part in this were alike seeking the best solution of a 
difficult problem, and never wavered in unbroken 
fellowship and confidence as comrades in the larger 
work of giving the gospel to China. It was not until 
1905 that Dr. Mateer published his book on this 
subject, and then only when urged by some of his 
associates. 

In the battle as to Enghsh in the college. Dr. Mateer 
had to yield to the majority who came into control 
after the removal to Wei Hsien. He was great enough 
not to allow the new policy to chill his love for the 
institution, or to stay his hands from such help as, in 
addition to his occupation with the Mandarin ver- 
sion, it was possible for him to lend either by influence 
or money, or even by physical toil. In his final 
relations with the college he proved himself to be still 
its loyal and generous supporter. 

It has often been remarked that one never meets a 
foreign missionary who has thrown himself or herself 



INCIDENTS BY THE WAY 293 

unreservedly into the work who is unhappy. They 
are human, and feel their trials often keenly; but 
their faces shine with an inward peace, and they re- 
joice over the one sheep, or the many, whom they 
have found in the wilderness and won to Christ. 
When Dr. Mateer advanced in age, and thought of 
what he had helped to accompKsh for the evangeliza- 
tion of China, he must have felt a satisfaction such as 
seldom possesses a soul. In view of this supreme joy 
it almost seems out of place here to tell of the ''inci- 
dents by the way" which ministered to his pleasure. 
One of these consisted of the signs of appreciation 
shown him by men or bodies of men whose commenda- 
tion meant something worth while. We have seen 
how the missionaries on the field trusted and honored 
him by calling him to leadership in several most im- 
portant enterprises looking toward large and perma- 
nent results. But others besides missionaries recog- 
nized him as worthy of their honors and trust. Han- 
over College in 1880 conferred on him the doctorate 
of divinity. In 1888 the University of W^ooster, for 
his "attainments, Kterary and scientific, philosophical 
and theological, and for his success in his work as a 
Christian missionary and teacher," gave him the 
doctorate of laws. At the centennial of his alma 
mater in 1902, Washington and Jefferson College also 
conferred on him the doctorate of laws, in recognition 
of his ''distinguished abihty and service as a scholar 
and minister of the gospel." In 1894, the British 
and Foreign Bible Society by making him an honorary 



294 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

foreign member gave him an exceptional distinction. 
In August, 1898, his lifelong friend, Rev. Dr. W. A. P. 
Martin, who had been called to the headship of the 
new Imperial University planned for Peking, wrote 
to him, asking whether he would accept the deanship 
of the school of engineering; but in reply he declined, 
on the dual ground that he was imder obligation to 
continue in his missionary work and in the translation 
of the Scriptures. In December of the same year he 
received from the "superintendent" of the new Im- 
perial University at Nanking an invitation to become 
the "head master" of that nascent institution. Com- 
ing as this did directly from that high Chinese digni- 
tary, it was an extraordinary mark of respect and 
confidence; but this also he declined, and for the same 
reasons as in the preceding case. In writing of these 
offers he said to one of the secretaries of the Board of 
Missions: 

Both these positions offered me a salary much 
greater than a missionary gets. Though not now 
doing much active work in teaching in the college, 
I yet feel that my work and influence here are very 
important. Having embarked in the work of Bible 
translation, I cannot turn my back upon it, imless the 
conditions of the work itself constrain me to do so. 
Also I am anxious to preach, — especially to work in 
revival meetings amongst the native churches. I 
also value highly the opportunity I have to preach 
to the students of the college. 

One of the minor but notable honors that came to 
Dr. Mateer was the celebration of his seventieth 



INCIDENTS BY THE WAY 295 

birthday at Wei Hsien. The Chinese have a curious 
custom as to the birthday of the emperor, and perhaps 
of other distinguished persons; they celebrate it a 
year, a month, and a day in advance of the true date. 
This custom was followed on the occasion of Dr. 
Mateer's seventieth birthday. An eyewitness has 
given the following graphic description of the affair: 

The alumni and students of the college planned the 
*' birthday party"; and a most elaborate affair it 
was. In the morning a long procession of hired re- 
joicers, with gay banners and doleful native bands, 
marched into the compound from the city and were 
reviewed at the great gate by Dr. Mateer and the 
college faculty. Wasn't it a fortunate thing that the 
doctor-of-laws hood of Dr. Mateer agreed so well with 
the Chinese idea of crimson as the most appropriate 
color for any celebration? At the chapel, which was 
packed to the limit with natives and out-of-town 
guests, presentation speeches which none but Orien- 
tals would ever have sat through, and responses were 
made, world without end. The most successful 
native pastor in this part of China, who was once Dr. 
Mateer's table boy, spoke first. The highest officials 
of the coimtry were present in all their grandeur, 
looking properly haughty and impressive, — though I 
shall never cease feehng that the typical expression of 
dignity and authority in China resembles the Kme-in- 
the-mouth look more closely than anything else. If 
a concrete argument for the existence of the college 
were necessary, I can think of none better than a 
look at the alumni. Such splendid, manly fellows 
they were, with keen, intelKgent faces! Some have 
become wealthy business men, who show their 



296 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

appreciation; and many are native pastors and 
teachers. A double quartet of college students fur- 
nished the music; and it was remarkable how well 
they sang the complicated part tunes. They have 
had no regular training, but have kept at it by them- 
selves, and have surprised us all by their progress. 
But for the music, the real, soul-upHfting music, give 
me the native band! Imagine several bagpipes and 
flutes, diminutive drums, and two or three toy trum- 
pets which sound only one note; and then conceive 
of each player carrying on an independent enterprise, 
and you may know something about the Chinese 
native band. It is too rare for words. Large bunches 
of firecrackers fastened on tripods, and cannon crack- 
ers, were used all through the festivities, so that it 
seemed exactly Hke the Fourth of July. A Chinese 
feast was given to all the invited guests, and the 
rabble from the villages near by encamped on the 
compound and ate the lunches they had carried about 
with them all morning in their handkerchiefs. It 
was a great day for the college, and a great occasion 
for the village people; but most demoralizing to 
language study. The gold-embroidered, scarlet ban- 
ners were so many and so immense that since that 
one day in the church no place has been found sufiS- 
ciently large to hang them." 

In the general section of China where he Kved he 
made many journeys. Over that part of Shantimg 
situated to the east of the Yellow River he traveled 
often, and far and wide. Several times he visited 
Peking. Once, as we have seen, he went down the 
Grand Canal, to Nanking, and the lower Yangtse. 
Frequently he steamed up and down the coast to 



INCIDENTS BY THE WAY 297 

Shanghai, and once as far south as Ningpo. But 
those immense and populous provinces situated in 
the west and south of China he never visited, not 
because he was not interested in them, or could not 
afford the expense, but because he could not spare the 
time. In the spring of 1868 the ''Shenandoah," an 
American war steamer, came to Tengchow on its 
way to Korea, where search was to be made for any 
survivors that might remain from the ''General 
Sherman," lost there two years before. The "Shen- 
andoah" wanted an interpreter, and by general con- 
sent the duty seemed to fall on Dr. Mateer, so that 
he felt constrained to accept, though the health of his 
wife and other affairs rendered this very inconvenient. 
The cruise lasted about six weeks, and carried them 
to several places on the west coast of Korea, and 
among these to the river Pyeng Yang, since so familiar 
to readers of missionary journals, and to those who 
followed the Japanese troops on their march against 
the Russians in the recent war. That was then a 
"forbidden land" to foreigners, and the expedition 
found it difficult to get into peaceable or forcible com- 
munication with ofhcials or other natives, and accom- 
plished almost nothing. In the light of the fuller 
present knowledge of that politically unhappy but 
religiously hopeful country the observations of the 
interpreter or of any of the other persons belonging 
to the expedition are now of little interest. 

Dr. Mateer came back to the United States only 
three times on furlough during the more than forty- 



CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

five years that intervened between his sailing for 
China in 1863 and his death. The first of these 
absences from China began in May, 1879, ^^^ ended 
about the first of January, 1881. Under the rule of 
the Board of Missions he was entitled to a furlough 
home long before that time, but he felt that he could 
not sooner leave his work. He also held the opinion 
that there is usually no sufficient reason to justify this 
privilege to a young missionary so early as is estab- 
Hshed custom. His wife, on account of health, had 
preceded him some six months. He came by way of 
Japan, and brought with him two Mills children, their 
mother having died. They crossed the Pacific on a 
slow vessel, but the voyage was deHghtful, and in 
about as great a contrast as is possible with his ex- 
perience on the ship which originally carried him to 
China. He was made more than comfortable and the 
captain went out of his way in order to show him 
courtesies. On arrival in the United States his time 
was spent in the main as by other home-coming mis- 
sionaries, — in family remiions, visiting here and there, 
preaching to churches, addressing ecclesiastical meet- 
ings of various sorts, seeking recruits among theo- 
logical students, and other engagements, — the total 
of which so completely fill up the time that Httle is 
left for real rest and recuperation. To this customary 
list he added two other items, — a period spent in 
attending medical lectures at Philadelpliia, and a 
hasty trip across the Atlantic to England and to 
Paris. 



INCIDENTS BY THE WAY 299 

His second furlough extended from July, 1892, 
until October, 1893. He went and came by the 
Pacific route, and was comfortable on these voyages. 
Julia was with him. During that sojourn in the 
United States, in addition to the occupations usually 
engrossing the time of a missionary on furlough, he 
went to Chautauqua and studied Hebrew in order 
to fit himself better for revision work. He also made 
at the World's Fair at Chicago that exhaustive 
examination of machinery, and especially of electrical 
appHances, of which Dr. Corbett, in the quotation 
previously given, has told us. One of the greatest 
pleasures that came to him on this leave of absence 
was the privilege of once more seeing his mother, then 
advanced in years. In the last of his letters to her 
that have come down to us he mentions that he and 
JuKa are at the writing just going into the harbor at 
Chef 00, and he concludes by saying: ^'We are very 
glad that we are at the end of our journey, and back 
again in China. This is where our work lies, and 
this is where we ought to be." It was on his arrival 
at Tengchow that his students gave him that royal 
welcome already described. 

On September 25, 1900, he was married to Miss Ada 
Haven, who had been for many years a missionary 
of the American Board at Peking, and as such was 
recognized as an accompKshed Chinese scholar and a 
successful and highly esteemed teacher in the Bridg- 
man School. Her engagement to Dr. Mateer briefly 
antedated the siege of Peking, and she wa&oneof the 



300 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

company of foreigners of whose fate the western 
world waited with bated breath to hear during the 
midsummer of 1900. In her book, ^^ Siege Days," she 
has given an inside view of the experiences of herself 
and of many others, and as such it has not only a 
passing but also a permanent interest and value as a 
record of that remarkable episode of madness on the 
part of the ^^old" China. After the relief of the city 
and a little season of recuperation from the strain of 
the siege. Miss Haven came down to Chefoo, and the 
marriage took place in the Presbyterian church at 
Chefoo, Dr. Mateer's old friend, Dr. Corbett, per- 
forming the ceremony. As his wife, Ada rendered him 
valuable assistance, by taking part in the preparation 
of the smaller book of ^'Mandarin Lessons." She 
also greatly helped the committee on the Mandarin 
version of the New Testament by making a Greek and 
Enghsh concordance of their first revision. For eight 
years they two walked together; and he had from 
her in his literary labors, as well as in other ways, an 
inspiration and often a direct help of which the world 
outside of their home can know very little. 

His last furlough extended from June, 1902, to 
August, 1903. Dr. and Mrs. Mateer came to the 
United States by way of the Siberian railroad and 
the Atlantic, so that when he arrived in China on his 
return he had a second time gone around the world. 
In a letter written to me in April, 1908, he says, "We 
went home seven years ago by the Siberian railroad, 
and it was exceedingly comfortable, — much more so 



INCIDENTS BY THE WAY 301 

than traveling in an ordinary Pullman car." Perhaps 
in the interval that had elapsed the recollection of 
the discomforts that attended the first stage of that 
journey had somewhat faded from his memory; or 
he may have had in mind only the part that lay 
through Siberia proper and in European Russia. A 
Chinese naval officer who had often come to his study 
to talk over various matters had expressed a desire to 
take him and his wife over to Port Arthur in a gun- 
boat when they started on their homeward route. 
The officer intended by this only one of those empty 
compHments which Orientals are accustomed to pay, 
without any thought that the offer involved would be 
accepted. Dr. IMateer was himself the soul of truth 
and honor, and, being such, took what this officer 
said to him at its face value. So, in this case, he sent 
word of acceptance of the offer, but an answer came 
back that ''after all, it would be inconvenient to take 
them just then, and that orders had been left with a 
Chinese junk to take them." The junk could not 
come in to shore and they had to go out in a rowboat. 
When they went aboard, they found that there was 
no cabin, — nothing, indeed, at their command but a 
little hold about breast-high, stowed full of Chinese 
baggage, some of it consisting of malodorous fish and 
onions. In order to make room for them, the onions 
were piled in stacks just above on the deck; but even 
this change left for human occupation merely about 
a cube of five feet. The boat was crowded with 
Chinese passengers, and it poured down rain, from 



302 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

which the Mateers could protect themselves only by 
hoisting an umbrella over the hatchway which was at 
the same time their only source of ventilation. It 
was not imtil the third day that they reached Port 
Arthur. 

It was characteristic of Dr. Mateer that under 
these conditions he spent every moment of dayHght 
in putting final touches on the manuscripts of the 
''Technical Terms" and of the "Chemical Terms," 
so that these might be mailed immediately to the 
printer. They came very near missing the train, 
and if this had happened they would have been 
compelled to wait a week for another opportunity. 
The railroad had but recently been completed at that 
end, and no regular schedule as to service had yet 
been established; but with many delays and with 
various inconveniences, after a week, they reached 
the point at which they overtook an express train 
bound for Irkutsk. This was luxury indeed, com- 
pared with the beginning of the journey. From 
Irkutsk onward the commendatory language of Dr. 
Mateer was justified by the accommodations. The 
Mateers visited Moscow and St. Petersburg; then 
came on to Berlin, and thence, successively, to 
Diisseldorf, Cologne, Paris, and London, the latter 
place brilliant with preparations for the belated cor- 
onation of King Edward, which took place while they 
were there. From Liverpool they crossed the At- 
lantic to Halifax, and then entered on their American 
vacation. 



IXCIDEXTS BY THE WAY 303 

A part of the furlough he spent in efforts to secure 
endowment for the Shantung College. In the 
prosecution of this work he \'isited various churches, 
and in Pittsburg he remained for six weeks. It was 
diuing this furlough that he sat as a commissioner 
from his presbytery in the General Assembly at Los 
Angeles. .Among other celebrated spots which they 
included in their itineran.' was the A'osemite ^'alley. 
But the part of the furlough that probably afforded 
them both the most unalloyed pleasure was spent in a 
\'isit to the region of the ''old home." His wife, in 
a letter, tells the stor}^ thus : 

Ever since our marriage it had been the cherished 
plan of my husband to take me on a wedding journey 
when we got to America, — a carriage journey, to see 
all the spots familiar to his childhood. By planning 
with this ia ^'iew we were able to spend the anniversary 
of our wedding in ]Mechanicsburg, with Cahin's 
cousins. One of these made a feast for us. [Many 
were the re m iniscences exchanged, — a happy binding 
of past and present. In a da}' or two we started on 
the long-promised journey, in a *' one-horse-shay." a 
journey of several days, our stops at noon, and again 
overnight, always being with friends of his childhood. 
But the friend to which most of all he wished to intro- 
duce me was his beloved old Long ^Mountain; and as 
I looked ffrst at that, and then at his glowing face, I 
saw whence, next to his Bible and catechism, he had 
drawn his sturdy love of truth and freedom. Either 
on that journey, or on subsequent trips from ]Mechan- 
icsburg or Harrisburg. we ^'isited all the locahties 
familiar to his childhood. — his birthplace, where the 



304 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

wall that used to seem so high to him now appeared so 
low to the white-bearded six-footer, — the brook where 
the clover mill used to stand, — the Silver Spring 
church, where he was baptized, and its adjoining 
graveyard, where lie many of his old Scotch-Irish 
ancestors, under quaint inscriptions. ... It 
rained hard the day we visited the battle field of 
Gettysburg. This trip we took in company with an 
old friend of Calvin's, a veteran of the war. Not 
less interesting were the surroundings of his second 
home, the '' Hermitage." Almost more noteworthy 
than the house was the big ''bank-barn," — the mows 
for hay, the bins for grain, the floor where he used to 
ride on horseback around and around over the grain 
in order to thresh it, the old workbench, and, above, 
the swallows' nests. The rush of memory was so 
strong that the white-haired missionary could not 
keep back the tears. He showed me the little old 
schoolhouse, the stream near by, the old flour mill, 
within an inner room of which he and his boy com- 
panions used to meet on winter evenings around a 
'' ten-plate" stove for debate. Another place of great 
interest was the old haunted churchyard, the fence of 
which he had mounted to fight his battle with the 
ghosts, and from which he got down a conqueror, 
never more to fear the face of man or devil. 

But the most sacred of all the spots which they 
visited was the grave of his mother, in the cemetery at 
Wooster, Ohio. 

From Seattle they sailed to Japan, and thence after 
a short season of fellowship with the venerable trans- 
lator of the Old Testament, Bishop Schereschewsky, 
and with other friends, they came back to Tengchow. 



XV 

FACING THE NEW CHINA, 

"China is a great land, and has a great future before it. I 
am thankful that I have had the opportunity to do what I 
could to make it what it ought to be. The Church of God is 
bound to have a great triumph here, with great trials in the 
process." — letter to james mooney, November 27, 1906. 

WHEN Dr. Mateer wrote that letter, the new 
China had not come. Nor has it yet ap- 
peared. The utmost that can be said con- 
fidently is that there are signs of a spring thaw in the 
vast sheet of ice that for so many centuries has held 
that country in fetters. Some great rifts can be seen in 
the surface and sounds that are indicative of movement 
can be heard. People who stand on the shore, and some 
of those who are on the ice, are shouting, ''Off at last!" 
It seems scarcely possible that the apparent thaw 
shall not continue until the streams are cleared and 
the land is warmed into new hfe by the ascending sun. 
But how long it will be before this is accomplished 
it is almost useless for the best-informed men to 
attempt to forecast. When the ice does really go, 
will it be with a sudden rush that will carry with it 
great injury to much that is well worth preserving? 
Or will the change come so quietly and gradually 
that the ice wiU sink without a tremor, and the frost 

20 305 



306 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

will gently melt away into waters that only freshen 
the soil? Probably the new China is not far away; 
as sure as progress is the law of civilization and enlight- 
enment in the world, it cannot be postponed much 
longer. Dr. Mateer Hved long enough to recognize 
the signs of its approach, and while he was glad because 
of this, he also was deeply anxious. 

His direct acquaintance with the old China ex- 
tended over the long period of forty years, — from his 
arrival at Tengchow in 1863 to his return from his 
last furlough, in 1903. During the five years im- 
mediately preceding his death he was face to face with 
the signs indicative of the China that is to be. He 
was therefore exceptionally qualified to speak in- 
telligently concerning the present situation in that 
country; for it is not the man who now for the first 
time finds himself there, amid the demand for rail- 
roads, and telegraphs, and up-to-date navy and army, 
and schools, who is most competent to interpret the 
movements of the hour. We are more likely to learn 
the whole truth if we turn to veterans like Sir Robert 
Hart and Dr. W. A. P. Martin and Dr. Mateer, who 
by almost lifelong experience know the real mind 
and heart of China; which surely, notwithstanding 
the occurrences of to-day, have not been completely 
changed. On the one hand, there can be no doubt of 
the love which Dr. Mateer had for the people of China. 
To promote their welfare in this world as well as in 
the next he gave himself to the uttermost all his long 
time of residence among them, and when death con- 



FACING THE NEW CHINA 307 

fronted him at last, his only reluctance to obey that 
call of his Master was because he would be unable to 
complete what he regarded as perhaps his greatest 
service for them. As we have already seen, in his 
explanation of the causes of the Boxer outbreak, not- 
withstanding his heartbreak and indignation for the 
horrors and outrages perpetrated, he lays bare the 
secret of it, as consisting in part of the wrongs done 
by foreign nations and persons to China and the Chi- 
nese. There were hundreds and perhaps thousands 
in Shantung who revered him as a father, and confided 
in him as they did in almost no other human being. 

I mention this side of his attitude because there is 
another that must be brought out here so clearly that 
no failure to see it is possible. He never allowed 
himself to be blinded as to radical faults of the most 
serious nature in the Chinese. It was about the same 
time as his entrance on his missionary work that 
Americans were set agog by the ^'Burlingame Mis- 
sion," and indulged in very extravagant notions of 
the civilization of old China and very rosy anticipa- 
tions of the future. Even missionaries caught the 
fever of the hour, and for home pubHcation wrote 
articles that seconded this view. This was so com- 
pletely foreign to the reality, as Dr. Mateer saw it, 
that he responded with an elaborate article in which 
he calmly punctured these current notions. It was 
the fashion then to regard the Chinese as leading 
the world in past ages, but in his opinion in none of 
their boasted achievements do they deserve such 



308 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

credit. Largely they have been imitators; and in 
the realm of their own inventions and discoveries 
and organizations they have seldom shown themselves 
capable of making the applications that ought to 
have been so patent to them that they could not miss 
them. Perhaps — writing as he did in reply to over- 
drawn appreciations on the other side — he may have 
fallen into the opposite mistake, to some degree. 
Perhaps also in later years he would not have gone 
quite so far in the direction he then took; but he 
never wavered in his opinion that in the lapse of ages 
during which the Chinese had Kved so exclusively 
within themselves, characteristics that are racial have 
been developed, some of which must be overcome, and 
others of which must be immensely transformed, 
before China can take her place among the advanced 
nations of the world. Also, ignorance, prejudice and 
superstition stand in the way, and cannot suddenly 
be dispelled. He continued to beheve that, notwith- 
standing the present rush to introduce western ap- 
pliances, the hatred of the foreigner, except among a 
minority, remains in the heart of ofhcials and people. 
He beheved too that, because of their faithlessness to 
obligations which they had assumed toward other 
governments, the apparent aggressions of foreign 
nations were not always and altogether without a 
measure of justification. Chinese law he considered 
to be still so much a mere whim of officials, often 
corrupt, that the time has not yet come for an Ameri- 
can citizen, whether missionary or merchant or 



FACING THE NEW CHINA 309 

mechanic, to be left safely to the uncertainties of a 
native court. 

Dr. Mateer was one of the leading "makers of the 
new China." It is because of his ''Mandarin Les- 
sons" that it is now, in comparison with the olden 
times, so easy to acquire the language; thus not 
only the missionary but also the agents of modern 
civilization are helped to gain speedy access to the 
people. He was the first to plant a college in the 
great province of Shantung, the birthplace of Con- 
fucius and Mencius, and still the center to which the 
race turns as that from which has emanated their 
most dominant cult. He took the lead, even of all 
the missionary colleges, in the place which he ass-igned 
to physical science. With his own money he built a 
museum which he described as ''a kind of polytechnic, 
for exhibiting foreign sciences and machinery to 
Chinese students and visitors." There they could 
see the appliances of steam and of electricity at work, 
including a model railroad, and the telephone and 
telegraph. When the governor of the province or- 
ganized his university at the capital, it was the man 
whom Dr. Mateer had made his successor in the 
college at Tengchow who was at first placed at its 
head, and five of the graduates were chosen to fill 
chairs in the new institution. He prepared text- 
books in mathematics, for which there is an enormous 
demand in the schools which are supplanting those 
of the olden time. To him more than to any other 
individual is due the translation of the New Testament 



310 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

into a form of the language which is just as intelligible 
to the man who can read but little, as to the educated; 
and which cannot be widely circulated without start- 
ing upward tendencies more mighty than those of 
railroads and western machinery. It would be pre- 
posterous to claim for any one person that he has been 
the maker of the new China; but there are not very 
many who, as to the mighty transformation appar- 
ently not far distant, rank so high up as Dr. Mateer. 
Thus far in holding him up as one of these leaders 
I have not mentioned his influence as an effective 
missionary in the sphere usually occupied by the repre- 
sentatives of the gospel; and for the reason that, as 
to this, he is a sharer with a multitude of others. At 
present there must be about four thousand men and 
women — ordained ministers, and lay men and women 
— in that line of Christian service in China, and there 
are about two hundred thousand Chinese Christians. 
These, though scattered far and wide among the 
hundreds of millions of the population, are sufficient 
to be powerfully felt on the side of genuine progress. 
Though in rapidly lessening numbers, their presence 
stretches back to the coming of Robert Morrison, a 
hundred years ago. Dr. Mateer's own judgment as 
to the relation of the missionary work to the present 
situation is well worth attention. In an article written 
by request, about nine months before his death, he 
said : 

The nation is in a state of transition which, when 
compared with her past and her traditions, is nothing 



FACING THE NEW CHINA Sll 

short of marvelous. Who would have predicted 
thirty-five years ago that such a state of things as the 
present would so soon prevail? God has used a 
variety of powerful forces to awaken China from her 
long sleep, not the least of which have been the pres- 
ence and influence of the missionary. Aside from his 
main business, which is the conversion of individuals 
and the upbuilding of churches, he has had a powerful 
influence in a number of important matters. First, 
his residence in all parts of inland China has done far 
more than is generally known to remove prejudice 
and to familiarize the people with foreign ideas and 
things. Second, he has been a main factor in starting 
the anti-foot-binding movement that is now sweeping 
over the land. Third, he has been the chief mover 
in the remarkable anti-opium reformation that is now 
enlisting the utmost effort of the Chinese government. 
Lastly, in the intellectual awakening, and in starting 
the wonderful educational propaganda now being 
pushed forward by the government, he has been a 
potent factor. Missionaries have made the text- 
books, and the graduates of their schools have set the 
pace for this remarkable movement; and this has 
been done notwithstanding the intense prejudice that 
exists against Christianity and its professors. 

Of the fact that he was face to face with a state of 
things that promised tremendous changes he was 
fully conscious. No man could have been more alive 
to his environment during these last years of his hfe. 
May 2, 1905, he wrote to a generous friend in the 
United States: ''The state of things in China to-day 
presents a great contrast with what it was when I 
arrived here forty-one and a half years ago. Then 



Sn CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

everything was dead and stagnant; now all is life and 
motion. It is just fairly beginning, it is true, but 
there is the promise of great things in the near future.'' 
September i, 1907, in another letter to a friend, he 
says: "This great and massive people, so long below 
the horizon of the western world, — a misty, unknown 
land, — is looming large in the east, and the eyes of the 
west are on it. China is awakening from the sleep of 
ages. Her senses are still dull, benumbed by the 
traditional customs and conservative folKes of the 
past, but her eyes are opening more and more, day by 
day. It is true she still wants to sleep on, but she 
cannot. The clamor of the world's progress dins in 
her ears. Giant hands are shaking her. Specters 
fill her imagination and groundless fears make her 
troubled. She essays to rise, but has no strength. 
She is growing frantic at the realization of her own 
weakness and incompetence." 

Facing the new China he, while gladdened on the 
whole by the outlook, yet saw grave dangers in the 
way. Some of these are due, in his estimation, to 
characteristics that have rooted themselves very 
deeply in the spirit of the people at large. In his 
article on "Education in China" he said: 

It is a peculiarity of the Chinese character that they 
are very hard to convince of the utility of a new thing, 
and must always be doubly sure before they decide 
to act; but as soon as the decision is made, they at 
once grow recklessly impatient for the consummation. 
The old educational methods and ideals are now 



FACING THE NEW CHINA 313 

abolished and the government is rushing headlong 
into new and hitherto untried measures. They issue 
commands to their subordinates without providing 
the means of carrying them out. The result is a 
chaos of more or less futile effort, attended by burden- 
some taxes and illegal exactions that produce disaffec- 
tion and rebellion. The lack of competent teachers 
handicaps the whole movement. To the eye of a 
western educator most of their primary and secondary 
schools are little short of a farce. Mission schools 
have trained a large number of competent teachers, 
but in most cases the prejudice against Christianity 
is so strong that heathen schools will not use them. 
This prejudice is much stronger in the secondary 
schools than it is in the provincial colleges and uni- 
versities. The high officials generally take more 
liberal views, and they are free from the social ostra- 
cism that prevents a small official or a private gentle- 
man from employing a Christian teacher. 

On account of the characteristics just described, 
while he rejoiced in the immense progress which 
Christianity was making both in the conversion of 
increasing thousands and also in its indirect influence 
over multitudes more, he had anxieties as to the near 
future of the church in that land. Writing to one of 
the secretaries of the American Bible Society, in 
January, 1906, he said: "If I understand the signs 
of the time in China, it will not be many years — I 
put it at ten to fifteen — until the Chinese church will 
declare her independence of the missionaries, pay 
her own expenses, and make her own creed. . . . 
What this creed will be, will depend very much on 



314 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

the kind and number of preachers we train in the 
meantime." The speeches made at the Chinese 
Students' Alhance, held at Hartford, August 24, 19 10, 
both by the Chinese and by Americans, indicate a 
very strong tendency in this direction. 

In view of the entire situation, national and re- 
ligious, he iterated and reiterated that the most 
imperative duty of missionaries in China at present 
is the training of native preachers and teachers on a 
scale and in a manner that will fit them to meet the 
emergency, and to take advantage of the opportunity 
for the evangehzation of the land and the starting of 
the church that soon must be, on a voyage that will 
not, through lack of chart and compass and proper 
guidance, wreck itself on the way. Here are some of 
his deliberate utterances within the last three years 
of his life: 

Allow me to say that at the present time in China I 
regard schools and the training of teachers and 
preachers as the chief thing, — much more important 
than the founding of new stations, with expensive 
buildings, in order to cover new territory. This is 
not a passing thought, but is said advisedly. The 
time for training these teachers and preachers is 
Hmited; before many years the native church will 
declare her independence, when all will depend on the 
inteUigence and soundness of her leaders. 

Again taking a view that includes the church, but 
that is so broad as to sweep over the entire national 
situation, he said: 



FACING THE NEW CHINA 315 

"China is fascinated by the power, skill, and knowl- 
edge of the west. She covets these things, and 
clamors impatiently for them, but they do not come 
at her call. She has caught up the idea that education 
will solve the problem and speedily hft her into the 
family of nations. She issues edicts to annul the old 
and inaugurate the new. She commands the opening 
of schools in every county, not realizing that without 
teachers, or methods, or money efficient schools are 
impossible. True to her character, she is decei\dng 
herself with a sham; a mere pretense of knowledge. 
The old is passing faster than the new is coming, and 
there are ominous signs of danger ahead. There are 
already a good many competent Christian teachers 
in China, and very few others; but Chinese conserv^a- 
tism hates and fears Christianity, and 'vv'ill not employ 
Christian teachers if it can possibly be avoided. 
China has still one great and fundamental lesson to 
learn, namely: that Christianity is not her enemy, 
but her friend; that faithful and honest men are not 
made by simply teaching them geometry and chem- 
istry. She will presently learn, however, that Chris- 
tianity holds the only patent there is for the con- 
struction of high moral character. She resents the 
idea now, but sooner or later she will be compelled to 
admit it. In the meantime she needs men to teach 
her, and to show her the way. Never perhaps in the 
world's history was the saving of Christ more con- 
spicuously exemphfied: ''The harvest truly is plente- 
ous, but the laborers are few." 

Ever since he set foot on the soil of that coimtry he 
had kept on pleading for reinforcements in his w^ork, — 
now a physician, then a teacher, again a man capable 
of overseeing mechanical operations, and always more 



316 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

ordained missionaries. He entertained very common- 
sense notions as to the sort of reinforcements that are 
desirable. He says in an old letter directed to theo- 
logical students in the seminary where he was trained : 
"I might add more especially that missionaries should 
not be, men of one idea, unless perchance that idea be 
a zeal for saving souls. The men needed are those 
who have well-balanced, practical minds. . . . The 
man of vivacious temperament, pleasing address, 
ready wit, and ready utterance, other things being 
equal, will make the best missionary." The language 
he did not regard as at all beyond the acquisition of 
any person with fair ability and faithful application, 
though he recognized more than a moderate measure 
of these as essential to the writing of books. As the 
new China loomed up before him, his cry for help 
became, if possible, more earnest; it came from the 
very depths of his soul, and with an intensity which 
words could not adequately express. 

Before proceeding to relate the story of his death, 
can I do better than to give the last of these appeals 
of which we have the records? The letter from which 
I quote is dated Wei Hsien, September i, 1907, just 
a year before his Master called him home. He said: 

Tell the young men of America for me, that China 
now presents to the church the greatest opportunity 
of the ages. God has opened the door, — opened it 
wide. Three hundred and fifty millions of people 
are ready to hear the gospel message. This door has 
not been opened without great strife and effort. In 



FACING THE NEW CHINA 317 

the face of steady and persistent opposition, and 
through much suffering and bloodshed, a large and 
lasting impression has been already made. The dark 
and discouraging days are over and the future is 
bright with promise. As I look back over the first 
twenty-five years of my missionary life, it seems like 
a troubled dream. The last fifteen years have 
wrought wonders in China. Old customs and preju- 
dices are giving way. The bright dawn of better 
things is upon us. The most conservative ^nd im- 
movable people in the world, persistently wedded to 
the old ways, are getting used to new things, and 
are ready to accept whatever promises profit and 
prosperity. All ears are open, and the preaching of 
the gospel is nowhere opposed or resisted. I often 
wish I were young again, just ready to start in 
on the bright opening campaign. In a large sense 
the future of the church and of the world lies 
wrapped up in this great people. Why in the 
providence of God the gospel of salvation has not 
long ere this reached this oldest and greatest nation 
is an unexplained mystery. These unconverted mil- 
lions of the Mongolian race will presently come 
into their inheritance of truth and grace, and then 
who shall say what they will become, and do? Their 
fecundity, their physical stamina, their patient per- 
sistence and intellectual vigor, are factors that will 
count in the world's future history. . . . As I 
look at the situation in the light of the past, and 
forecasting the probabilities of the future, a more 
inviting field for the exercise of consecrated talent 
has rarely, if ever, presented itself in the history of 
civilization. Very few people in the church in the 
west understand and appreciate the present condi- 
tion of things in China. The political forces and 



318 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

problems are better understood than the moral and 
rehgious. It is still true that 'Hhe children of the 
world are wiser in their generation than the children 
of light." The faith of the long, old centuries is 
passing rapidly away, but what shall the new faith 
be? This is the great Christian question of the hour. 
The young men of China are mad to learn EngHsh, 
because there is money in it. With English come 
books and newspapers, sowing the seeds of agnosti- 
cism, and skepticism, and rationaKsm, and so forth. 
The cry is. Who will champion the truth? Who will 
administer the antidote? Who will uphold the cross? 
Who will testify for Christ? The call is urgent. 
Satan is in the field. The opportunity is passing. 
The time is strategic. The changes of many years 
are now crowded into one. Young men, it is time 
to be up and doing! The march of events will not 
wait on your tardiness. Who will hear the Master's 
trumpet call? 



XVI 
CALLED UP HIGHER 

"I have given my life to China: I expect to live there, to 
die there, and to be buried there." — from his farewell ad- 
dress IN THE CENTRAL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, Allegheny, 

Pa., 1862. 

"I expect to die in heathen China, but I expect to rise in 
Christian China." — ^another farewell address. 

IN the chapter on the Mandarin revision we left 
the committee on the Old Testament, in the 
smnmer of 1908, at work on Genesis and the 
Psalms, down at Chef 00, with the Goodrich and the 
Mateer family keeping house together. Dr. Good- 
rich had been the dean of the Union Theological 
Seminary at Peking, and so was thoroughly versed 
in the educational phase of missions, still occupying 
so large a place in the heart and mind of Dr. Mateer. 
These two men also had served together on the revision 
of the New Testament, from the beginning to the end. 
They were in many features of their character very 
different from each other, and yet in their common 
labors and in their convictions they were in thorough 
harmony. Mrs. Goodrich and Mrs. Mateer had come 
out on the same steamer in 1879, to join the forces 
of the American Board, as unmarried missionaries; 
and the subsequent years had served to cement their 
friendship. The house in which they resided at 

319 



. f, 



320 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

Chef 00 during that summer looked out on a charming 
scene: the 'island," the bay, and the passage, with 
craft of all kinds, Chinese junks and sampans, and 
steamers, small torpedo boats, and big battleships 
of every nation, either riding at anchor or coming 
up into the harbor. From the back windows the 
eye rested on a jagged range of hills, crowned at the 
top by a curious wall, so Hke the views of the Great 
Wall shown in pictures that ignorant sailors imagined 
it to be that famous structure. One can easily under- 
stand that under such circumstances the two families 
greatly enjoyed the earlier part of the session of the 
committee. Dr. Goodrich, in the following quotation 
from the article which he published in the January 
issue of ''The Chinese Recorder," in memory of Dr. 
Mateer, had in mind his entire acquaintance with 
him, extending over thirty-five years, but it is tinged 
especially with the recollection of the preceding sum- 
mer. He says: 

Much of the time we have been together in the pro- 
tracted daily sessions of the committee, as well as in 
the long evening walks, when we talked on everything 
between the zenith and the nadir; for then his 
thoughts were "ready to fly East as West, whichever 
way besought them." If he were not widely read, 
he had thought widely and deeply, being at once con- 
servative, progressive, and original. He had strong 
opinions, and was at times severe and stern in main- 
taining them. But he loved those of a contrary 
opinion with a true and deep affection. From first 
to last he was a royal friend. Dr. Mateer thought 



CALLED UP HIGHER 321 

naturally in terms of logic and mathematics, but not 
without a side in his nature for poetry and sentiment. 

Dr. Mateer's character, especially during the later 
years, was constantly mellowing, and the past summer, 
which our two famihes spent together in our own 
*' hired house" at Chefoo, must ever be remembered 
as one of the happiest periods of our Kves, without a 
break or jar to mar its enjoyment. Was it a sort of 
unconscious preparation for the sweeter joys and more 
perfect fellowship in the dear upper home? 

Dr. Mateer worked on with his usual untiring 
faithfulness, during the last summer, though not 
quite well at times. How he Hved in the Psalms, 
upon which he bestowed loving labor! Sometimes 
he would look out from his Httle study to the room 
which held all too closely his beloved wife, who has 
followed the Bible revision with an interest scarcely 
less intense than his own, and consult with her on 
some difficult phrase, or tell her of some beautiful 
figure he had succeeded in translating. 

In the early morning we took a dip in the sea — he 
was a good swimmer — and after he had "talked with 
Him," at six o'clock he was ready for his teacher. 
In the evening his walks were less regular and shorter 
than in other years. 

In explanation of one sentence of the preceding it 
needs to be stated that by an accident Mrs. Mateer 
was then so disabled that she kept her room. 

During the summer he suffered from a chronic 
tendency to dysenteric diarrhea, yet it was not until 
well toward the close of the session of the Committee 
that he remained in bed for the entire day. At first 
he worked on there, upon the translation of the 



CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

Psalms, which he was especially anxious to give to 
the people in such language that they could readily 
catch it with the ear, and that the Psalms might be 
to the Chinese church the rich heritage they are to 
the Enghsh-speaking race. At length it became 
evident that his case was fast becoming so critical 
that if medical aid under the most favorable condi- 
tions could save his Hfe, the very best that could be 
had must be secured at once. So it was decided that 
he ought to go on a steamer down to Tsingtao in the 
German concession. It would require twenty-four 
hours to make the trip; but when asked whether he 
was able to endure the journey, he repHed: ''I must. 
I shall die if I remain here." 

The necessity for the change was not due to any 
lack of medical care or friendly ministrations at 
Chef 00 ; it was made in order to secure the superior 
advantages which a good hospital affords. For- 
tunately the voyage was quiet. His wiie went with 
him; and Dr. and Mrs. Goodrich also accompanied 
them. It was Tuesday night when they reached 
Tsingtao, and friends were at the landing; and, sup- 
ported in loving arms, he was carried at once in a 
carriage to the Faber Hospital, where Dr. Wunsch, 
a skilled physician, exhausted his efforts to save him. 
Dr. Hayes was already there, and at Dr. Mateer's 
request spent each day in the hospital. 

Friday of that week was the anniversary of their 
marriage, but it was impracticable for his wife to be 
brought to his bedside. Saturday it became evident 



CALLED UP HIGHER 323 

that the end was not far away, and she was permitted 
to see him; and he seemed so comforted by her pres- 
ence, though he was too weak to talk much, that they 
allowed her to stay. In response to a telegram, his 
brother Robert and Madge, his wife, came at once. 
Saturday afternoon his mind wandered, and seemed 
to run on the affairs of the college. Simday morning 
he asked Robert to pray with him; and in connection 
with this one of the great passions that had long 
possessed him manifested itself. As on the journey 
down on the boat he lay exhausted, he had said to 
Dr. Goodrich: ^'They must do their best to cure me 
at the hospital, so that I can finish the Psalms. That 
is all I have to live for now" — meaning, of course, 
by this, only the work to which he had given himself. 
Now, when his brother in his prayer asked that the 
sufferer at whose bedside he knelt might be given an 
abundant entrance into the heavenly rest, Dr. Mateer 
cried out: ''Raise your faith a notch higher, Robert. 
Pray that I may be spared to finish the translation of 
the Psalms." Then he asked that Dr. Hayes be 
called in, and he requested him to pray for this; and 
when this was done he added, "O Lord, may this 
prayer be answered!" 

On Sabbath when some of his "boys," alumni of 
the Shantung College, who were living in the town 
came to see him, he was so weak that he could only 
say to them, ''Good -by." 

All those last days he took great comfort in prayer. 
As he gradually went down into the shadow of death, 



324 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

his faith continued firm and bright. To an inquiry 
by his wife as to his trust in Christ, he repKed: "Yes, 
I have nothing to fear." Some time before the end 
he said to his brother Robert, ''I have laid up all in 
my Father's keeping." The very last words which he 
was heard distinctly to articulate were indicative of a 
passion that possessed his soul even far more strongly 
than his desire to complete his work on the Scriptures. 
Those who knew him most intimately recognized in him 
a man of extraordinary reverence for God, — for him 
whom, from his childhood's memorizing of the cate- 
chism on to the end, he believed to be infinite, eternal, 
and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, hoH- 
ness, justice, goodness, and truth. He was one of 
those who in the public services of a house of worship 
always stood in prayer, though about him all might 
be sitting in their seats. He thought no other posture 
except kneeling or standing appropriate in this act 
of social worship. His whole conception of religion, 
theoretical and practical, was saturated with a holy 
fear of God. To him God was his heavenly Father, 
who has manifested himself above all else in the 
person and work of Jesus Christ, and unto whom he 
constantly turned with holy boldness; but whenever 
he came consciously into the divine presence he was 
devoutly reverent. It was in keeping with his whole 
religious life, therefore, that his last audible words, 
were "Holy! Holy! True and Mighty!" Then— 
not long afterward — he fell asleep. He died at 10:25 
in the morning of September 28, 1908. 



CALLED UP HIGHER 325 

Among his papers a Kttle book was found which 
when it was opened proved to be a collection of private 
prayers recorded in 1863, the year in which he went 
to China. The last of these prayers is the following: 

Permit not the great adversary to harass my soul, 
in the last struggle, but make me a conqueror, and 
more than a conqueror in this fearful conflict. I 
humbly ask that my reason may be continued to 
the last, and if it be Thy will, that I m.ay be so com- 
forted and supported that I may leave testimony in 
favor of the reahty of rehgion, and thy faithfulness 
in fulfilling thy gracious promises, and that others 
of thy servants who may follow after, may be en- 
couraged by my example to commit themselves boldly 
to the guidance and keeping of the Shepherd of Israel. 
And when my spirit leaves this clay tenement. Lord 
Jesus receive it. Send some of the blessed angels 
to conduct my inexperienced soul to the mansion 
which thy love has prepared. And oh, let me be so 
situated, though in the lowest rank, that I may behold 
thy glory! 

This prayer, which in his young manhood he had 
recorded in that Httle book, was fulfllled so far as its 
petitions concerned his end upon earth; and who 
doubts that equally fuIflUed were also those petitions 
which looked forward to his entrance upon the eternal 
Hfe? 

At Tsingtao a funeral service w^as held in the Httle 
Chinese Presbyterian chapel. Among those present 
were Rev. Dr. Bergen and Rev. W. P. Chalfant, from 
the Shantung Presbyterian Mission, then holding a 



326 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

meeting at Wei Hsien, representatives from the Basel 
and Berlin Protestant Missions, and a large number of 
Chinese. After the casket was placed in the church, 
former students of the Shantung College came in 
with long wreaths of immortelles, and so festooned 
these about the cofl&n that they could remain on the 
journey yet to be taken. Addresses were delivered 
in both English and Chinese, and were full of apprecia- 
tion for the missionary just gone up higher. The 
Chinese speakers were some of his own *'boys," who 
then testified to their appreciation of their "old 
master," as they were accustomed to call him. After 
the service the casket was taken to the same steamer 
on which he had been brought down, and thus was 
removed to Chefoo, in care of his brother Robert and 
Mr. Mason Wells. That evening the casket was 
escorted by a number of Chinese Christian yoimg men 
to the rooms of the Naval Young Men's Christian 
Association; and the next morning to Nevius Hall, 
on Temple Hill, where it remained until the time of 
burial, covered with flowers provided by loving hands. 

During this delay the missionaries up at Tengchow 
had, in response to a telegram, exhumed the remains 
of Julia, and caused them to be transferred to Chefoo, 
where they were placed in the vault prepared in the 
cemetery. Her monument, however, was left stand- 
ing in the original burial place, and the name of Dr. 
Mateer has also been inscribed on it. 

The funeral service was at 2.45 p. m., on Sabbath; 
and the large, new church on Temple Hill was filled 



CALLED UP HIGHER 327 

to overflowing. The conduct of this sendee was in 
the hands of the Chinese, Pastor Wang of the Ternple 
Hill church presiding, and Pastor Lwan of the Teng- 
chow church assisting. Li a sermon based on Revela- 
tion 14 : 13, Pastor Wang spoke of Dr. Mateer's 
long and active life, of his power as a preacher who 
addressed himself straight to the hearts of the people, 
and of the enduring character of the work he had 
accompHshed. Rev. Lwan followed in an address 
in which he dwelt upon the large number of people 
who would mourn the death of Dr. Mateer, and the 
many different places w^here memorial services would 
be held; on his adaptability to all classes of men in 
order to win them to Christ, and on his unfaiHng 
assurance that the gospel would finally triumph in 
China. 

The EngKsh service followed immediately after- 
ward in the cemetery; but on account of the large 
number of foreign missionaries who had come, and 
the limited space, announcement had to be made 
before lea\ing the church that of the many Chinese 
who were present, only those who had been Dr. 
Mateer's students could be admitted. One of the 
great regrets incident to the burial was that Dr. 
Corbett, who had come out to China with him on 
that long first voyage, and who had been his close 
associate on the field in so much of the work, and who 
cherished for him the warmest regard, could not be 
present. He was away in a country field when death 
came to Dr. Mateer, and the news did not reach him 



CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

in time for him to return to the funeral. In his 
absence Rev. Dr. W. 0. Elterich, of Chefoo, conducted 
the service. After he had spoken, Rev. J. P. Irwin, 
of Tengchow, — who had been associated with Dr. 
Mateer in the same station, and who as a consequence 
knew him intimately, — bore his testimony especially 
to the unceasing activity of the life of him whose 
body was about to be lowered into the grave, and the 
impossibihty that his work should have been finished 
even if he had Hved to be a hundred years old; to 
the warm heart hidden beneath an exterior that did 
not always reveal it; and to the purpose now fulfilled, 
but formed nearly half a century before by him and 
by her whose remains now rest at his side, to spend 
their whole fives in giving the gospel to China, and 
to be buried in its soil. 

Their graves are in a very beautiful spot, directly 
in front of the upper walk leading in from the gate, 
and in close proximity to those of Dr. Nevius and of 
others of their missionary friends and associates. 

The tributes paid to his character and work were 
so numerous, both out in China and in the United 
States and in other Christian lands, that all that is 
practicable here is to make some selections that may 
serve as representatives. That of Dr. Corbett de- 
serves the place of precedence. Their strong attach- 
ment was mutual. In an article filling several 
columns of "The Presbyterian Banner," Dr. Corbett 
paid his tribute to his deceased friend. Much of this 
is of necessity a condensed rehearsal of his Hfe and 



CALLED UP HIGHER 329 

of the leading characteristics therein revealed. He 
concludes by saying: 

Personally I shall ever esteem it one of the greatest 
blessings of my life that it has been my privilege to 
have enjoyed the friendship, and of being a colaborer 
with this great man for nearly fifty years. More 
than forty years ago it was my privilege to spend 
with him weeks and months on long itinerating 
journeys, preaching daily to hundreds who had never 
heard the gospel, and at no place finding Christians 
to cheer our hearts. Often after a long day of ex- 
haustion, preaching in the open air at great markets 
and on crowded streets, in the evening we would 
kneel together at the inn and earnestly pray for God's 
richest blessing upon our efforts to bring men to a 
saving knowledge of the truth. Often the thought 
came into our mind, Can these dry bones live? Shall 
we live to see Christian churches estabHshed and 
shepherded by Chinese pastors? His unwavering 
faith in the ultimate and universal triumph of the 
gospel in China was a tower of strength to all associ- 
ated with him. When the news of his death reached 
me at our inland station, the thought rushed into my 
mind: ''Know ye not that there is a prince and a 
great man fallen this day in Israel?" 

The world will ever seem more lonely without him. 
His sympathy and help could always be counted on 
in every kind of true missionary work. His labors 
were crowned with success and honor continuously, 
until he was summoned by the Master to a higher and 
wider sphere where his saints serve him. 

It seems to me that the man who is entitled to be 
heard next is the Rev. Dr. W. M. Hayes, now of 



330 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

Tsingchow fu, but formerly — after the resignation of 
Dr. Mateer — the head of the Tengchow College. 
There is no one of his associates on the mission field 
in whom Dr. Mateer had greater confidence; and 
for years they were in such constant contact that they 
knew each other most thoroughly. A few days after 
the burial a memorial service was held at Wei Hsien, 
and at this Dr. Hayes made an extended address 
before an audience including the students of the 
college. The respective lines of thought which he 
first elaborated were his faithfulness to Christ's 
service, his resolution, his attention to great matters, 
and his industry. In the conclusion he said: 

Let us strive to make his strong spiritual qualities 
our own. Of these, the most conspicuous were three: 
First, his faith. The morning he died, replying to an 
inquiry of his brother, he said, *'I have left those 
things long ago in the hands of my Father." Later, 
and only a few hours before his death, he said, as if 
speaking to himself, "We are justified of the Lord 
Jesus." It is not strange that with such a faith he 
fell asleep as a little child would in its mother's arms. 
Second, his reverential spirit. Though he did not 
fear the face of man, and was outspoken in his con- 
victions, yet, especially in his later years, as one who 
had served with him on the Translation Committee 
from the first remarked, his reverence in approaching 
the divine presence was apparent to all. This was 
characteristic of him to the end. The last distinct 
utterance which he made was, ''Holy! Holy! Holy! 
True and Mighty." Lying prone on his couch, it 
seemed as if he saw the King in his beauty, and the 



CALLED UP HIGHER 331 

vision filled his soul v/ith godly fear. Third, his for- 
giving spirit. Being a man of decided views, and dis- 
approving of what did not seem to him wise and good, 
he did not always approve of the course taken by his 
colleagues; yet if con\dnced that a man was working 
with a single heart for the interest of Christ's kingdom, 
he was ready to forgive, and to hope for the best. He 
loved the Lord who had forgiven him, and so loved 
those w^ho had offended against himself. This 
extended both to those with whom he labored, and 
to those for whom he labored. One of his marked 
characteristics was not to give over any man who had 
fallen away, and he was always ready to give him 
another chance. 

I have already noticed the intimacy of Dr. Chauncey 
Goodrich, of Peking, with Dr. Mateer. The tribute 
which he paid his long-time friend, and his associate 
and captain on the Mandarin Revision Committee 
through the many years of their labors, is perhaps the 
most comprehensive of all that have been pubHshed. 
It filled fourteen pages of " The Chinese Recorder," 
and touches all the leading features of the life and 
work of Dr. Mateer. What he says as to the Man- 
darin version has especial weight. His testimony was : 

In the interest of truth it must be added that no 
man gave so much time and hard work, or dug quite 
so deep. His effort to produce a translation which 
should match the original, to translate the figures and 
preserve their beauty, was extraordinary. ... At 
these sessions Dr. Mateer by his strong and masterful 
personahty, as well as by the thoroughness of his 
preparation, did much to set the style of the work. 



332 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

Turning to some of his leading characteristics, he 
proceeded thus: 

First, his personality. In the Conference of 1890, 
Dr. Wright, secretary of the British and Foreign 
Bible Society, was with us. He remarked that "of 
all the men present at that conference, there were two 
whose personaHty most impressed him," One of 
these was Dr. Mateer. He bore himself like a sort 
of prince among men, facile prince ps. He was bom 
to lead, not to follow. Ha\dng worked out his o\mi 
conclusions, he was so sure of them that he expected, 
almost demanded, their acceptance by others. Yet 
he was not arrogant and was truly humble. More- 
over, he could ask forgiveness for words that he felt 
had been too hasty or too harsh, feeling much broken 
by gi\ing pain to a friend. In this he showed his 
greatness. He could also forgive and forget. But he 
was still a leader by the very force of his personality. 

He had the quahty of perseverance in a large degree. 
Having undertaken a work, he held to it with unwaver- 
ing and unconquerable persistence to the end, . . . 
and that not only because he gripped the work, but 
because the work gripped him. Had his hfe been 
spared, he would have worked steadily on through 
the Old Testament till the last verse of Malachi was 
finished, and the whole was carefully reviewed. Of 
Dr. Mateer's habit of working till the end was reached 
Dr. Hamilton writes: ''Not many months ago, at a 
meeting of the Shantung Board of Directors, we had a 
considerable amount of unfinished business, and the 
week was hastening to its close. No one had more 
work awaiting him at home than the Doctor. Yet 
when the question of the time of our dispersion was 
raised, he said: 'I have always made it a rule, when 



CALLED UP HIGHER 333 

I attend meetings of this kind, to finish up the business 
in hand, no matter how long it takes.' " United to this 
quaHty of perseverance was a kindred quaUty of 
thoroughness, that appeared in everything he at- 
tempted. 

Dr. Mateer possessed a rugged strength of character. 
He was almost Spartan in his abiHty to endure hard- 
ships, and in his careless scorn for the amenities and 
''elegant superfluities" of modem Hfe. Yet "be- 
neath a rugged and somewhat austere exterior" he 
had a heart of remarkable tenderness. He was a 
block of granite with the heart of a woman. 

Rev. Mr. Bailer also had been associated with Dr. 
Mateer in the revision of the Scriptures since 1900. 
He says of him: 

He has left behind him an example of strenuous 
toil that it would be difficult to parallel; of iron 
constitution, he was able to do an amount of work that 
would have killed most men. His devotion to the 
cause of Christ was beyond praise. His recreation 
consisted in change of occupation, and he made all 
tend to the one end. 

Ada, who in the last eight years of his Hfe stood 
nearer to him by far than any other, and knew his 
innermost Hfe, puts on record this supplement as to 
some of his traits not so fully brought out by the 
testimony of his friends: 

Next to his reverence, the most noteworthy feature 
of his character was his love of truth: truth in the 
abstract, scientific truth and truth in the common 
conversation of life, but especially in matters of 
religion. He had no patience with the popular 



334 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

maxim that it does not matter what a man believes, 
so long as he is sincere. *'Is there no such thing as 
truth?" he would say. ''Does it make no difference 
to a man whether the bank in which he invests is 
broken? Men are not such idiots in the ordinary- 
affairs of Hfe." If it came to a choice between a polite 
He and the impolite truth, he would choose the latter. 
He exalted truth above every other virtue. His 
love of it freed him from that trammeling of con- 
ventionality which binds so many. He would be the 
slave of no man-made custom. 

Associated with this characteristic, perhaps a result 
of it, was the kindred love of freedom. One of his 
favorite texts was, "And ye shall know the truth, 
and the truth shall make you free." This sturdy 
independence he sought to impress on all minds coming 
imder his influence. He had no patience with that 
kind of education that simply trained the Chinese to 
become ''lackeys of the foreigners." How his lips 
would curl as he muttered that phrase! He would 
waste money often in trying to help some one to 
assertive, manly work in independent lines, rather 
than as an employee. This sturdy force in his char- 
acter was like the magnetic crane, which lifts pieces 
of iron, even though they have been hidden in the 
ground. It compelled the manhood in other men to 
assert itself; though hidden from view, yet to burst 
from its covering, and to be drawn up higher. 

As already noted, the West Shantung Mission was 
in session at Wei Hsien when the tidings of Dr. 
Mateer's death came; and before they adjourned 
they adopted a highly appreciative minute concerning 
him. In it they said, among other equally strong 
tributes to his worth : 



CALLED UP HIGHER 335 

No one ever went to him in trouble without finding 
sympathy and help. Frugal in his style of living, 
he gave generously of his personal means to many a 
needy man; and he made many considerable gifts 
to the college and to other departments of the work 
he so much loved. His name will long be a fragrant 
memory in our midst, and the Chinese will more and 
more, in the years to come, rise up and call him 
blessed. 

The EngKsh Baptist Mission at their first meeting 
after his death adopted resolutions expressive of 
their deep sense of loss. One of these will serve as 
an example of all: 

Combined with great strength of will and an en- 
thusiasm which overcame all difficulties and opposi- 
tion which stood in the way of the accomplishment of 
the great and arduous tasks, he was endowed with 
much tenderness of heart and a devoted loyalty to the 
gospel. He was a successful educator, a fine ad- 
ministrator, a powerful preacher, and a distinguished 
scholar; and his removal from amongst us has left 
a gap which will not soon or easily be filled. 

The Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, under 
whom he had served for forty-five years, adopted an 
extended and highly appreciative paper. In one of 
the paragraphs, they say: 

Dr. Mateer was a man of unusual abihty and force 
of character; an educator, a scholar, and an executive 
of high capacity. . . . The Board records, with 
profound gratitude to God, its sense of the large 
usefulness of this great missionary educator. It 



336 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

mourns that the work is no longer to have the benefit 
of his counsel, but it believes that he builded so wisely 
and so well that the results of his labors will long 
endure, and that his name will always have a promi- 
nent place in the history of missionary work in the 
Chinese Empire. 

Secretary Brown, of that Board, in a letter to Rev. 
Robert Mateer, of Wei Hsien, said: ''I regarded him 
as one of the great missionaries not only of China, 
but of the world." 

Scores upon scores of personal letters, and a large 
number of articles published in newspapers and peri- 
odicals, are available as tributes to his work and char- 
acter. Necessarily, they repeat what is said in the 
quotations already given, though almost every one 
makes some valuable addition. Few of them were 
meant for publication, and it is not because of a lack 
of appreciation that any of them are omitted here. 

Shall his biographer add his own estimate of the 
work and character of Dr. Mateer? If the writing 
of this book has been at all what it ought to be, this 
cannot be still needed; for, if he has revealed the inner 
and the outer life of this great Christian missionary 
as it deserves, and as he has aimed to do, then to turn 
back now and rehearse his characteristics would be a 
superfluity. Besides, if I begin, where shall I end? 
I must tell of his personality; his individuality; of 
his physique and of his psychical nature; of his 
peculiarities of intellect, — its vigor, versatility and 
vision; of his great heart, and the tenderness of it 



CALLED UP HIGHER 337 

that was not always externally manifest enough to 
command recognition; of his will that yielded never 
to numbers or force, but only to truth and duty; 
of a conscience whose voice would have made him 
defy anything that man could do to him; of a piety 
that rooted itself in the sovereignty and in the grace 
of Almighty God, and in the redemption which Christ 
finished on the cross; of a consecration that laid him- 
self and all that he could bring upon the altar of divine 
service; of the preacher, the teacher, the scholar, 
the man of science, the man of business, and of the 
son, the husband, the brother, the fellow-disciple and 
associate in Christian service; of his economy of 
time and of money, and of his generosity; of his 
conservatism and his progressiveness ; of his single- 
ness of purpose, his courage, his persistence, his 
efficiency; of his weaknesses as well as of his strength; 
of his many successes and his few failures; and of how 
much more I cannot enumerate. I would be justified 
in comparing him with the very foremost of the 
servants of Christ, living or dead, who during the 
past century have consecrated their lives to the 
evangelization of China; or with Verbeck of Japan, 
or Duff of India. However, I will here venture 
further, only to invite as many as may to look well 
into the story of his life; and I am confident that they 
will join with me in sa3dng: ''This was a Christian; 
this was as distinctively a missionary, and as efficient 
as anyone of our age; and at the same time this was 
as manly a man as our generation has seen." 



338 CALVIN WILSON MATEER 

In the "Pilgrim's Progress" we read: ''After this it 
was noised abroad that Mr. VaHant-f or- truth was taken 
with a summons by the same post as the other; and 
had this for a token that the summons was true, 
'That his pitcher was broken at the fountain.' When 
he understood it he called for his friends, and told 
them of it. Then, said he, I am going to my Father's; 
and though with great difficulty I am got thither, 
yet now I do not repent me of all the trouble I had 
been at to arrive where I am. My sword I give to 
him that succeeds me in my pilgrimage, and my 
courage and skill to him that may get it. My marks 
and scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me that 
I have fought His battle who now will be my rewarder. 
When the day that he must go hence was come, 
many accompanied him to the river side, into which 
as he went he said, 'Death, where is thy sting?' And 
as he went down deeper, he said, 'Grave, where is 
thy victory?' So he passed over, and all the trumpets 
sounded for him on the other side." 



INDEX 



Aground off coast of China, 63 
Algebras, 164 

Anglo-Chinese college, 216, 218 
Anniversary of graduation, 39 
Apparatus, 209, 211, 244 
Apprehensions as to China, 308, 

Arithmetic, 162 



Bailer, Rev. Mr., 182, 258, 333 
Baptism, infant, tract, 160 
Beaver Academy, 43, 239 
Bergen, Paul D., 225, 229, 325 
Birth, 15 

Birthday, seventieth, 273, 295 
Books in preparation, 160, 166 
Boyish traits, 17, 25, 237 
"Boxer" uprising, 264, 284, 286 
Brown, Arthur J., 9, 12, 336 
Brown, Julia A., 53 
Brown, Margaret, 54, 123, 143, 

153, 168 
Business capability, 154 

Canal, Grand, 169 

Candidate for ministry, 42, 44, 48 

Capp, Mrs., 54, 123, 1-43, 144, 

153, 168, 276 
Caring for converts and churches, 

123, 126, 174, 178, 183, 192, 

193, 194, 201 
Catechism, 161 
Chalfant, W. P., 325 
Chapel at Tengchow, no 
Characteristics, personal, 25, 28, 

45, 82, 83, 90, 91, loi, 148, 

170, 171, 236, 320, 324, 330, 

332, 333, 335, 33^ 
Characters written, Chinese, 165, 

253 



Chefoo, 67, 203, 264, 265, 273, 

281, 299, 300, 320, 326 
China, appointed to, 57 
China as a mission field, 70, 317 
China, the "new," 150, 286, 305, 

311, 317 
Chinese characteristics, 308, 312 
Chinese language, 105, 108, 165, 

252, 269 
Chinese Presoyterian church, 

199, 200, 204, 205 
Chow Yuen, 123, 184 
Christianity in China, 173, 310, 

313 

Classmates, 37, 38 
Coal press, 75 
Coffin, making a, 242 
College student, 34, 93 
Conference, first missionary, 252, 

Conference, second missionary, 

252 
Conference, third missionary, 

266, 267, 272 
Controversies, 151, 170, 197, 203, 

290 
Conversion, 92 
Converts, early, 123, 142, 143, 

176, 177, 192 
Corbett, Hunter, 59, 62, 67, 76, 

102, 116, 119, 144, 176, 239, 

300, 327, 328 
Coimtry school, 29 
Cumberland valley, 15 
Curriculum of Tengchow school, 

136, 138, 144 



Dangers, 63, 121, 122, 124, 280, 

281, 283, 284 
Death, 324 



340 



INDEX 



Delaware, Ohio, 52, 58 

Delay after appointment, 51, 54, 

99 
Discipline, church, 142, 175, 200 
Discipline, school, 140, 141 
Diven, grandfather, 20 
Doctorate of Divinity, 293 
Doctorate of Laws, 293 
Duffield, James, 30 
Dunlaps creek academy, 32 
Dwelling houses, 80, 228 

Education and missions, 129, 

159, 312, 315 
Education, the "new," in China, 

244^ 
Electrical machinery, 214, 248 
Elterich, W. O., 328 
Employment for converts, 246, 

334 
English Baptist mission, 225, 335 
Enghsh in school and college, 

203, 216, 218, 230, 292 
Entertainments, 245, 250 
Experimentation, scientific, 213 

Faber hospital, 322 
Famines, 287 
Farm life, 22 
Father, 16, 18 
Field, Cjmis W., 213 
Fitch, G. F., 157, 163, 170 
Funeral services, 325, 326 
Furloughs, 14s, 298, 299, 300 

General Assembly, 206, 303 
Generosity, 171, 172, 287 
Geometry, 163 
Goodrich, Chauncey, 91, 165, 

166, 258, 259, 266, 271, 272, 

319, 320, 322, 323, 331 
Graduates of college, 144, 145, 

149, 233, 295, 323, 326 
Grier, Margaret, 82 

Hamilton, W. B., 332 
Happer, Andrew P., 216 
Haven, Ada, 299 



Hayes, Watson M., 147, 164, 179, 
210, 214, 225, 240, 322, 323, 

329 
Hays, Isaac N., 93 
Hebrew at Chautauqua, 299 
"Hermitage," the, 22, 238, 304 
Home life, 23, 41, 79, 82 
Honors and distinctions, 38, 293 
House-building, 76, 78, 228 
Hunterstown academy, 31 
Hymn book and hjonns, 161 

Illness, last, 321 
Inns, Chinese, 68, 116 
Invitations declined, 43, 52, 218, 

294 
Irwin, J. P., 328 
Itinerations, 112, 116, 119, 123, 

124, 125, 127, 184, 186, 329 

Japanese bombardment of Teng- 

chow, 284 
Jefferson College, ss, 238 

Kiao-chow, 195, 286 
Kirkwood, Mrs. Jennie, 17, 23, 

40 
Korean expedition, 297 
Kwan Yin temple, 73, 129, 135, 

210 

Language, learning the, 105, 108, 

109 
Licentiate, a, 49 
Licentiates, Chinese, 201 
Locomotives and Baldwin Works, 

239, 243 
Lwan, Pastor, 327 

Maker, a, of "new" China, 309 
Mandarin Dictionary, 165, 166 
Mandarin Elementary Lessons, 

170, 300 
Mandarin Lessons, 167, 169, 172 
Mandarin version, 252, 255, 256, 

259, 263, 264, 26s, 267, 268, 

271,319,321,322,331 



INDEX 



341 



Manufacturing, 240 
Marriage, 53, 299 
Martin, W. A. P., 167, 249, 306 
Mateer, Ada Haven, 82, 170, 241, 

248, 250, 266, 299, 303, 319, 

321, 322, 324, SS3 
Mateer, Horace N., 17 
Mateer, Jennie W., 17, 23, 40 
Mateer, John L., 17, 156, 278 
Mateer, Julia A., 53, 62, 78, 108, 

114, 123, 126, 129, 134, 137, 

147, 169, 170, 192, 194, 276, 

280, 298, 299 
Mateer, Lillian, 17, 146, 147 
Mateer, Robert M., 17, 146, 323, 

324, 326 
Mateer, William D., 17, 240 
Mechanical ability, 155, 236 
Medical work, 86, 298 
Mercer, S. B., 32 
"Methods of Missions," 151, 

196, 292 
Miao, 123, 184 
Miller, J. R., 44 
Mills, Rev., 72, 114, 126, 167, 

174, 179, 194, 199, 243, 276, 

291, 298 
Ministry, a Chinese, 161, 200, 

314 
"Mission," the, 196 
Missionary, a foreign, 40, 42, 49, 

51, 54, 57 
Missionary quahfications, 316 
Moderator of Synod, 203 
Mother, 16, 20, 40, 50, 299, 304 
Museum, 245 

Nanking, 169, 294 

Nevius, J. L., 71, 145, 151, 196, 

256, 259 
New Testament revision, 258, 

260, 264, 266 
Ningpo, 203 

Observatory, 209, 214 

Old Testament revision, 272, 273, 

319, 322 
Ordination, 53 



Parentage, 16, 18 
Pastorate, 179, 180, 192 
Pecuniary affairs, 171, 172 
Peking, 264, 278, 285, 294 
Periodicals and contributions, 

150 
Persecutions, 187, 195 
Policy of college, 230 
Preacher, as a, 91, 102, 181 
Preaching in Chinese, log, 204 
Premises of school and college, 

129, 135, 147, 209, 210, 229 
Presbyterian Board of Foreign 

Missions, 335 
Presbytery of Shantimg, 199, 2cxj 
Presidency of college, 179, 214, 

229, 231 
Press, the mission, 152, 155, 157, 

278 
Profession of religion, 33 
Provincial college, 215, 247, 309 
Publications, 150, 160, 161, 162, 

164, 165, 166, 167, 169, 170 
Pupils, 129, 132, 134, 135, 137, 

138, 146 



" Rebels," Tai-Ping, 71, 280 
Religious life, $s, 89, 93, loi, 104 
Removal to Wei Hsien, 226 
Revisers, Mandarin version, 256, 
258, 264, 272 



Sabbath School letters, 133 
School-Book Commission, 159 
Science Hall, 228, 229 
Science teaching, 212 
Shanghai, 62, 152, 202, 252, 278, 

282, 285 
Shantvmg, province, 71, in, 284, 

289 
Shantung college, 128, 207, 220, 

253, 3<^3 
Shantung Christian University, 

222, 234 
"Shen," 151, 170, 291 
Siberian trip, 243, 300, 302 
Social life, 82, 193 



342 



INDEX 



Southern Baptist mission, 70, 220 
Stated supply, 178, 179 
Stereotyping, 155 
Stove, making a, 75 
Student \^isitors, 108, 245 
Students converted, 142, 143, 149 
Superintending the mission press, 

152, 153 
Surgery, 86 
Synod of China, 152, 201 



Tai An, 124 

Tengchow, 68, 70, 84, 108, 208, 

215, 264, 280, 281, 304 
Tengchow church, 72, 174, 177, 

192 
Tengchow school, 129, 132, 135, 

138, 140, 146, 149, 153, 277 
Tengchow station, 71, 73, 81, 223 
Terms, ecclesiastical, 204 
Terms, technical and scientific, 

159, 160 
Theological student, a, 46, 96 
Theology, teaching, 212 
Tientsin massacre, the, 281 
Tours and travels, 68, 112, 114, 

116, 119, 123, 124, 125, 126, 

169, 171, 192, 193, 296, 298, 

299, 300, 322 
Translating and its lessons, 269, 

271 
Travel, modes of, 68, 112 
Tributes, 327-338 
Tsinan, 125, 226, 234, 289 



Tsingchow, 119, 120, 125, 226, 

229 
Tsingtao, 233, 322, 325 
Tsou Li Wen, 259, 260 
Type-making, 155 

Union in Shantung Christian 

University, 226 
Union of Presbyterians in China, 

204, 205 

Voyage, first, 58, 99 

Walker, Mrs. Lillian, 17, 18, 146, 

147 
Wang Yuen Teh, 259, 327 
War, Chino- Japanese, 284 
Wedding journey, 303 
Wei Hsien, 119, 226, 228, 285, 

295, 330 
Wei Hsien, at, 228, 243, 248, 

250, 295 
Welcome at Tengchow, 145 
Wells, Mrs. Margaret G., 82 
Wells, Mason, 82, 285, 326 
West Shantung mission, 325, 334 
Western Theological Seminary, 

43, 46 
Wilson, Samuel, ^^ 
Workshop, 240, 241 



Yangtse, the, 169, 171, 253 
Yuan Shih K'ai, 215, 284 



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